


Iris and the Flash

by Anjali_Organna



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Earth-4, F/M, Falling In Love, Iris x Flash, Reporter!Iris, Secret Identity, failures in communication, hookups in the flash suit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-15 00:07:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8034301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anjali_Organna/pseuds/Anjali_Organna
Summary: The AU or Earth-4 where Barry and Iris are strangers because Iris x Flash is a thing we deserved more of.[Chapter Eight: In which Iris makes some new acquaintances, Barry loses his temper, and everyone else tries not to judge him for it.]





	1. Part One

After about two months, Barry gives in and googles himself.

Well, _himself_ is not entirely accurate: he searches for any mention of a masked, red-clad figure running around Central City. He expects to find some confused tweets, maybe a couple Facebook posts or the odd mention in the crime section of _Picture News_. What he doesn’t expect is an entire blog, devoted to all things Streak related.

There’s no name attached to it, but a quick check reveals a local IP address. Barry’s tempted to dig further, but some part of him resists: the coverage so far is wholly admiring, with a respectful admonition to its audience that speculation on the Streak’s identity will not be posted. _I can only surmise that the Streak has a good reason not to reveal himself/herself_ , the blog states, _and I will do my best to respect his/her wishes._ Given this, it seems ungenerous of Barry to do any snooping of his own.

He sticks to it more out of a sense of pride than anything else, but he does keep checking back. He doesn’t love being called “the Streak” but he hasn’t been able to come up with anything that he likes better. (Cisco says, “I still don’t get why you don’t like Impulse,” and then sulks for ten minutes after Barry rolls his eyes for the fifth time.)

And then the blog makes a post promising more information on a meta they’ve been after for the last several days. _I have something that might help. Please email me for more._ Barry sends a photo of his cowl as proof, and the blogger replies with a new alias that they didn’t know about. They also include scanned police files on the meta using this new alias that list prior known addresses, other sightings, most likely haunts, the works. _How’d you get this?_ Barry emails back, and five minutes later a coy _I have my ways_ lands in his inbox along with a winking emoji. He’s able to double-check the info himself, logging into the police database at work, and everything seems legit.

They continue on in this vein for the next several weeks, with the blogger supplying background information on metas Barry’s already pursuing or tip-offs about possible meta activity he hasn’t yet heard about. Sometimes it’s information from other civilians that the blogger passes along to him. Sometimes the information clearly comes from police files and Barry knows he should probably tell the captain that their systems might have been hacked, but he doesn’t. The information is almost always accurate and at one point he makes an idle comment about this. The blogger responds, _I take this stuff seriously. I don’t want to waste your time; that wouldn’t be helpful. I do my best to check everything out before I send it to you._

 _I hope you’re not putting yourself in any danger doing it,_ Barry writes back.

_Thanks, but I can handle myself._

It’d be rude to question their judgement, especially since he has no idea who they are in the first place. Cisco is dying to find out their identity and even Dr. Wells and Caitlin are curious but Barry adamantly refuses to pry; it’s become a point of honor for him. The blogger never makes any sort of personal comments about themselves in their posts or their emails to him. He has an inkling that they might be a female given the use of the winking emoji, but he knows better than to make wholesale assumptions based solely on that.

Several weeks later, he feels comfortable enough to send the blogger this request: _Hey, not to be presumptuous or anything, but I’m not super wild about being called the Streak._

A few hours later, they reply with _Oh, sorry! I can change it. What do you prefer?_

_Not sure, actually. I feel sort of weird about it—it seems kind of douchey to give myself a name, you know? Like I’m special or something._

_Don’t feel douchey. You’re allowed to decide what people call you by. When you come up with something, let me know._

Barry thinks about it for a few days, spends some time with a thesaurus (which he will absolutely deny if anyone thinks to ask him), and resolutely does not talk to Cisco or Caitlin. He wants this decision to be his alone.

When he finally emails the blogger back, he’s a little hesitant—he doesn’t want them to laugh at him or anything. _What do you think about the Flash?_

_Oooo. That’s perfect. Seriously, I love it. Changing the blog now._

Luckily, the Flash passes Cisco’s name metric. Caitlin doesn’t seem to care either way, and Dr. Wells is as inscrutable as usual, so Barry feels pretty good about his decision. He feels even better when he sees the revamped blog with SAVED BY THE FLASH splashed across the header.

 _I won’t lie, I thought the Streak had pizazz,_ the blogger emails late one night several days later. _But I think the Flash is something special. It suits you._

_Thanks, I’m glad you like it._

_Can I persuade you to agree to a more formal interview then? Obviously not regarding who you are, of course—it’s probably best that I not know. Plausible deniability and all that. We can do it over email if that makes everything easier._

Barry’d been lying in bed, idly scrolling through Facebook as he waited for the blogger to respond, but this request makes him sit up.

 _You don’t mind revealing_ your _secret identity to me if we meet?_ he writes back after thinking for a moment.

 _Nah_ , they respond. _I know you’re good at keeping secrets._

_You’re awfully confident about someone you’ve never met._

_I have a good feeling about you, Flash. Besides, I_ really _want this interview. If you want to do it in person, I’m okay with that._

Barry should tell them that an email interview is okay. He absolutely should. But—he’s curious. It’s hard not to be; after the last several months, he’s grown to think of the mystery blogger as an ally despite still not knowing anything about them.

 _Okay_ , he writes. _Name the time and place_.

*

He doesn’t tell Caitlin, Cisco, or Dr. Wells. He’s fairly sure Dr. Wells would disapprove, even if Barry doesn’t intend to reveal his identity to the blogger. Cisco and Caitlin he doesn’t tell because he doesn’t entirely trust Cisco not to hack into his feed while it happens, and Barry thinks that he owes the blogger their privacy, even from the rest of the team. He’ll tell them about the meeting afterwards.

The blogger suggests meeting on the roof of some coffeehouse that’s fairly close to the police station. Barry offers to meet them during the day but they argue that it will be easier for him to remain unseen at night. He sends a scolding email about their self-preservation, which goes unanswered.

Barry plans on arriving to the meeting early so he can scope out the rooftop and is somewhat surprised when he actually manages to not be late. There’s a promising-looking ledge he can sit on, which puts him out of sight from the entrance below. He settles down to wait, feeling unaccountably nervous.

Five minutes before the scheduled meeting time, the door opens and a woman steps out. She pauses for a moment, scanning the the rooftop for him, and he takes in dark hair swinging over a delicate build, encased in jeans, boots, and a leather jacket. Then he calls, “Up here!” She swings around, sees him, and smiles hugely.

With a jolt, he realizes that he’s seen her before, around the station. She’s the daughter of one of the CCPD detectives and furthermore, she’s totally gorgeous, which are two reasons why Barry has never even thought about going near her. No wonder she’d had an inside scoop on the criminal background of some of the metas he’d faced.

“Flash! I should have known you’d be early.” Her voice is warm and friendly. In the light thrown from the buildings surrounding them, her eyes are bright and her smile is—well. Barry swallows and says, “Trust me, I’m usually never punctual.” He has enough presence of mind to vibrate his vocal chords and disguise his voice. Considering that he works in the same building as her father, he figures it’s better to be safe than sorry.

She looks impressed. “How are you doing that?”

“I can vibrate different parts of my body.”

“That’s—that’s pretty cool. Does it hurt?”

“Nope. It kind of tickles, though.”

“Huh. Well, I guess I could have brought my good recorder after all. I figured you wouldn’t want me to tape your voice. I suppose I could use my phone but that mic sucks.”

“Sorry,” he says, and she shrugs, digging in her bag and pulling out a notepad and pen. “No worries. It won’t kill me to do it the old-fashioned way.” She grins up at him. “So, the Flash isn’t usually on time.”

“I’m aware of the irony.”

She laughs and the sound shivers through him. It’s unnerving—he’s at least fifteen feet away from her, they’re not even _touching_ , yet he’s never had such a viscerally physical reaction to anyone before. Part of him doesn’t want to get closer to her, nervous about the effect she might have. But then she says, “Should we begin?” and he starts to feel faintly ridiculous, sitting high above her as he is.

He zips down, coming to stand a few feet away and careful to angle himself so a bright light shining behind him prevents her from getting a clear look at his face. Unfortunately, the light only serves to illuminate her own features more clearly. Up close, she’s even more beautiful than he’d remembered from the few times he’d been close enough to see her in the station.

Her mouth drops open. “Whoah—I know you were fast…I mean, I’ve seen videos, but that’s nothing to seeing it in person…. How do you _do_ that?” Her eyes are dazzled and wholly admiring, and Barry feels a dangerous warmth bloom in his chest. _Get a grip_ , he tells himself. Just because his mystery blogger had turned out to be a stunning woman that he sort of knew—and here he searches, futilely, for her name but comes up short—he shouldn’t be trying to impress her, like they were on some sort of _date_.

“I have super speed,” he says, and she rolls her eyes.

“No shit, Sherlock. But _how_?”

“It’s complicated.”

She raises her chin. “Try me.”

He hesitates. “There are also some things I can’t—won’t tell you, either.”

“I’m aware of that,” she says, waving a hand. “Won’t stop me from asking the questions, though.”

“Fair enough,” he says.

“And I think I can guess how it began,” she adds. “The particle accelerator explosion.” When he doesn’t immediately confirm it, she says, “Look, there have been other metahumans I’ve talked to, you know. All of them trace their abilities back to that night. So unless you’re a super special snowflake, I’m going to assume the same is true for you.”

“Isn’t there some sort of saying about assumptions and what happens when you make them?” he asks.

Her eyes narrow. “Are you denying that the explosion is the cause of your speed?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Unexpectedly, one side of her mouth kicks up wryly. “I see you’re gonna make a girl work for it.”

He flushes, his mind going someplace dirty, and is grateful that his cowl and the darkness prevent her from noticing. “Sorry,” he says after he regains his composure. “I’m not trying to be difficult.”

She shakes her head. “No, it’s my fault. You told me you weren’t going to be able to explain everything and now I’ve gone all combative on you.” She takes a breath. “Why don’t we start over? Can you tell me your story, or as much of it as you’re willing to share? And we can discuss what is on versus off the record.”

He goes through some of it, explaining as much as he feels comfortable. At one point he starts geeking out about some of the science of what happened to him and she says, amused, “Given how passionately you’re discussing this, I’m guessing you’re in the sciences in your non-superhero life as well.” Before he can become embarrassed, she continues reassuringly, “Don’t worry, my brother’s an adorable nerd, too.”

That brings him up short for a moment, caught between being compared to her brother and being called _adorable_. Then he shoves it to the back of his mind and continues talking. He leaves out direct mention of STAR Labs and Dr. Wells, Cisco, and Caitlin. She asks him if he has anyone helping him and he says, “I don’t want to put anyone else in danger.”

“Understandable,” she says and makes a note. “But presumably someone helped you put together your suit. Unless you count sewing among your many skills?”

“I’m a talented guy,” he says, “but not _that_ talented.” She laughs again and it warms his bloodstream, buzzes down his arms to his fingertips. He thinks he could get drunk on the sound of her laughter, thinks he could coast forever on her smile. He has enough presence of mind to be aware that this is dangerous, but he can’t bring himself to care just yet.

“So what’s the fastest you’ve ever gone?” she asks, pen poised.

He makes a face. “I think I’d better not tell you.”

Her eyes widen. “That fast, huh?”

“No,” he says quickly, “I mean, look, it’s fast, but it’s probably not a good idea for the exact number to be out there.”

“Oh,” she says, deflating, “you’re right, of course.”

“Also,” he adds quickly, hating the expression on her face, “I _am_ getting faster. So. I don’t have an exact number to give you anyway.”

“Huh,” she says, frowning down at her notebook as she scribbles, “and do you know why you’re getting faster? Have you noticed if there’s any correlation in your speed increases with anything else? What you eat, how much rest you get, stuff like that?”

“Um, to be honest, I haven’t been tracking things like that, particularly,” Barry replies and wonders if Caitlin, Cisco, or Dr. Wells have. They probably already do, now that he’s thinking about it, and makes a mental note to ask them later.

“I wonder if any of the other metas I’ve talked to have felt their abilities increasing over time,” she mutters, still scribbling. She falls silentas she finishes jotting down her notes, and Barry realizes that this is something he should also probably discuss with the rest of his team as well.

“That actually would be valuable information,” he says. “Do you think…would you feel comfortable sharing any information about that with me?”

She cocks her head to the side, thinking. “Obviously I’d have to get their permission,” she replies. “But if they agree to it, I don’t see why not. Would you be interested in talking to them?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I mean, I do end up talking to some of them. But, uh…”

“The ones you talk to are usually breaking the law,” she finishes wryly.

“Yeah,” he says ruefully. She grins at him, lightning quick, and he’s struck anew by her smile. “So how many metas have you actually run across so far?”

She furrows her brow, thinking. “More than a dozen, less than twenty, give or take? I’d have to check the database.”

Barry goggles at her. “You have a database?”

She shrugs. “I mean, it’s just an Excel spreadsheet. But yeah. It comes in handy to keep everything straight. It would be super embarrassing to get my meta abilities confused when I’m talking to folks. Some people’s abilities are not as…obvious as yours.”

He can’t help but laugh, even as he’s thinking that Cisco would _love_ her. “That would also be really useful.”

“Ah,” she says, frowning. “I’m not sure…there’s some stuff that’s confidential on there.”

“Understood.”

She keeps frowning for a few beats more, then shakes her head and says. “Anyways. I’ll take another look later, see what I can send you. Shall we continue?”

“As you wish,” he says, and she laughs. “Very Dread Pirate Roberts of you,” she replies, but continues on before he can really think about how that seems somewhat fitting.

*

The first thing he does when he gets home is look up the name of her father. Detective Joe West. Barry shuts his laptop before he can pry further and find out West’s daughter’s name. He goes to bed instead.

His dreams that night are of her.

*

A day later, the interview goes live. Barry can’t quite allow himself to do anything so vain as putting a Google alert on himself and he pointedly does not check the blog, so he doesn’t find out until Cisco makes a surprised _meep_ and then looks up and says gleefully, “ _Someone’s_ been keeping _secrets_.”

“What are you—oh, Barry,” Caitlin says, glancing over Cisco’s shoulder. “You gave an interview to them? Without telling us?”

“I didn’t mention you guys,” Barry says defensively, moving over to another workstation and pulling up the website. Before he can read it though, Dr. Wells says, “That was not wise.” His face is inscrutable, but then again, that’s hardly out of the ordinary for him.

“It’s fine,” Barry says, “The blogger is on our side. We can trust her.”

“Her?” Cisco asks, sitting up straight. “It’s a girl?”

“I mean, she’s a grown-up, not a girl,” Barry says awkwardly and Cisco’s eyes sharpen. “She’s hot, isn’t she?” When Barry doesn’t reply, he shoots out of his chair, arms raised victoriously. “I KNEW it!”

Caitlin sends him a withering look. “What does her looks have to do with anything? Besides proving that you’re being kind of gross about all of this.”

“Caitlin, please,” Cisco returns. “Haven’t you seen any movies? This is basically a Hollywood meet-cute. Barry’s just met his future wife, I can feel it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Barry says hastily. “She’s—there’s not—we didn’t…”

“You’re blushing,” Cisco points out, and even Caitlin raises a brow at this.

“Okay, yes, she is pretty, but it wasn’t like that,” Barry insists. “Her looks have nothing to do with anything. And I agree with Caitlin, I don’t feel right objectifying her like that. She doesn’t deserve it, especially not after all the help she’s given us over the past few months.”

Cisco has the grace to look a little abashed at that, and Barry feels a twinge of guilt, because he _had_ been attracted to her looks. But it’s more than that, he argues with himself—he would have been drawn to her intelligence and warmth and tenacity in any case. Her writing manages to strike the perfect balance between empathy for the metahuman subjects of her posts and matter-of-fact reporting on what she believes the public needs to know. It’s hard not to respond to the obvious passion she feels for her work, and he wonders if she’s like that in all areas of her life. He wonders what it would be like to fully _be_ in her life.

Later, he receives this email: _So what’d you think? Did I do you justice?_

Barry smiles down at his phone. _I think you gave me a little_ too _much credit, actually._

A minute later, her reply arrives: _Don’t be silly. People deserve to know the real you, and the real you is a hero. I’m only doing my part._

_I never asked you—why’d you get interested in this, anyways?_

_Reporting on metahumans, you mean? I’ve always liked mysteries. Besides, no one else was taking this seriously, but I knew something amazing was happening in Central City, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it._

_Well, I think you’re just as much of a hero as I am. You know what they say: Not all heroes wear capes._

_I’ve never seen you wear a cape—pics, please!! I promise not to post them._

_Never actually worn one. At least not as the Flash—it’d get in my way. I can’t promise there weren’t any Halloween costumes that prominently featured them when I was younger, though._

_Oh, the old “When I was younger” line. Don’t lie to me, Flash. You probably wore one last year._

_No comment._

*

Barry’s in his lab running some tests when the inevitable happens. He’s been avoiding the detective’s bullpen as much as possible, slinking in and out of Singh’s office with his head resolutely down and emailing all of his reports to various people instead of offering to bring physical files. He’d known sooner or later that _she_ —that Detective West’s daughter—would stop into the station and he’d catch sight of her; he just hadn’t thought he’d need to worry about his _lab_ of all places.

Detective West comes in with his partner, Detective Thawne, looking for Barry’s analysis on another case that might relate to one of theirs. Even then, as he searches through his own files, he’s still not worried; after all, it’s the middle of the day and he’ll have the detectives out of there in a matter of minutes. He finds the relevant folder and hands it to West, who opens it and scans the material. Barry says, “Anything in particular I can help with?”

“Maybe,” West says, then turns to his partner, indicating something in the folder. “What do you think of that?” Thawne leans over, frowning down, and Barry turns around to tidy up the remaining folders splayed out on his desk. The two detectives murmur to one another and he tunes them out as one of his monitors beeps, signaling the end of another test he’s running. He’s about to check on it when a familiar voice says, “Dad, there you are!”

Barry freezes. Heels click across the floor as West says, “Hey baby, what’re you doing here?”

“Did you forget about lunch?”

“Uhhh,” West says and her laugh rings out. It’s just as potent as it was before. Barry remains turned away, not daring to show his face. He’s not at all mentally prepared for this, not at all sure he’d be able to keep his face schooled.

“Sorry, honey,” West says. “Can you give me five minutes?”

“No problem,” she replies. “I’ll be at your desk.”

“No snooping!”

“Then you shouldn’t be leaving sensitive materials out where any enterprising young reporter can find them,” she says and Barry hears a snort that must come from her father. “Eddie, good to see you.”

“Always a pleasure, Iris,” Thawne replies. The heels click out of the room again and the tension unspools from Barry’s body. The detectives resume talking to one another but he hardly registers this.

Her name is Iris West.

*


	2. Part Two

“So was he cute?”

Iris rolls her eyes at Linda. “I get the biggest interview of the year, and all you can ask me is whether or not he was _cute_? Where’s your journalistic integrity?”

“Oh, please,” her friend replies, taking a swallow of beer, “like both can’t coexist. Don’t take that holier-than-thou approach with me and answer the damn question.”

They’re both stuck at CCPN after hours waiting for their respective editors to get back to them about changes to various stories they have in progress. A sizable chunk of the staff is still working frantically to make deadlines for the next day’s paper but for the moment no one is bothering Iris and Linda, perched at the latter’s desk in a corner of the office.

“He was wearing a mask! _And_ he was vibrating his face, so I couldn’t make out any details.”

“Vibrating his…oh my god. Do you think he can vibrate _everything_?”

It takes Iris a moment to understand what Linda’s implying, but when she does, she chokes and sets her now-empty bottle down with a clink. “I don’t—you—I cannot _believe_ you.”

“You’re so pure, Iris. So innocent. So sheltered.”

“No, I just don’t have a filthy mind like _you_.”

“How are we even friends?” Linda wonders, shoving another bottle towards Iris.

“We’re friends because you think my brother’s cute,” Iris replies, accepting the beer and twisting it open.

Linda glares at her. “I do not! He’s a _child_. I would never.”

“He’s twenty-two, and you almost did at his birthday party.”

“I thought we were never going to speak of that night again.”

“You threw up on my favorite pair of boots,” Iris says. “I can speak of it whenever I want.”

“You’re just trying to distract me,” Linda accuses her. “From the Flash. And whether or not he’s cute.”

“I honestly don’t know,” Iris protests. “Seriously. He’s tall, and built like—well—a runner, but more than that I cannot tell you.”

“Runners can be hot. They’ve got that lean muscle-y thing going on.”

“Yup.”

“Mmmmm,” Linda says dreamily. “There was a guy I hooked up with in college—a sprinter. His legs were _amazing_.”

Iris laughs. Before she can respond however, one of the copyeditors comes over with a question for Linda so Iris retreats back to her own desk.

She hadn’t really lied to Linda: she didn’t know, objectively, what the Flash looked like. But she hadn’t wanted to mention the feeling talking to him gave her, a sort of bubbly breathlessness that grew in her chest as she’d interviewed him. It’s confusing: she’s never responded to any of her interview subjects like this before, and the journalist in her is mortified that she’s even thinking about it. Part of it, she thinks, is due to the admiration she feels for him; super speed aside, he’s still risking his life every day fighting to protect the people of Central City. Despite his protestations, he _is_ a hero, one that inspires her daily with every new selfless act he performs.

And she can’t deny that part of it also has to do with how well his suit had molded to his body, even with the oh-so-conveniently placed light that he’d stood in front of, preventing her from seeing him fully. He’s a do-gooder superhero with a form that she’s always found attractive, long and lithe, and well, Iris is only human. She can find him compelling, she decides. As long as she continues to do her job and be professional, it’s not like anything will ever come of it.

*

One day after her interview with the Flash runs on her blog, Scott Evans emails the entire CCPN staff a link to the post under the subject line _WHY IS A BLOGGER GETTING SCOOPS ON US??_ Iris ducks her head down, carefully avoiding Linda’s worried look from across the newsroom. An hour or so later, Mason Bridge perches on top of her desk, looking at her thoughtfully. Iris leans back in her chair, meeting his gaze. When he doesn’t speak, she shifts self-consciously. “What?”

“I’m curious,” he says. “For how long did you think you could keep it a secret?”

Iris blinks. “Keep what a secret?”

He leans down towards her. “Your blog.”

She blinks again, uneasy. “What blog?”

Mason rolls his eyes. “Iris, don’t act stupid. You’re not any good at it.”

“Mason—”

“I’ve been reading over your pieces for CCPN for the last two years,” he interrupts. “You think I wouldn’t recognize your writing when it’s staring me in the face?”

“Oh,” Iris says faintly. She glances involuntarily towards Scott, on the other side of the office. Mason follows her look. “He’s gonna figure it out eventually, you know. He’s not _me_ ”—and this is said with absolutely no self-deprecation whatsoever—“but he’s also not an idiot.”

“He’s gonna be mad, isn’t he?” Iris says apprehensively.

“Moonlighting with a blog isn’t against any rules per se,” Mason replies. “But yeah, he’s gonna be mad that you didn’t bring this to us.”

“No one took this stuff seriously before,” Iris protests. “That’s why I started the blog in the first place. Scott would have laughed me out of the room if I’d come to him all those months ago.”

Mason shrugs. “It was nothing more than a crackpot theory at first. He’d have been right to question your judgement. But now it’s demonstrably not. It’s real news. And you’re on CCPN’s payroll.”

“What should I do?”

“Tell him. It’s better coming from you than from someone else. And remember,” he adds, standing, “you’re the one with a connection to the Flash and to these other metahumans. No matter how mad he gets that you withheld this stuff initially, he’s gonna want your access even more. What’s the hit count on the blog? Unique monthly visitors?”

When she tells him, he whistles. “Tell Scott that, he’s not gonna care about anything else.”

*

Before she comes clean to Scott, she asks the Flash to meet again. She thinks it’s only fair he knows she’s actually a journalist, with a job at Central City’s newspaper. They meet on the rooftop of Jitters again and she’s unaccountably nervous waiting for him, even more so than the first time. She wonders whether she’ll have the same reaction to him this time around. She can’t decide whether she’ll be disappointed or relieved if that feeling is gone.

He’s late, skidding to a stop in front of her, spilling apologies.

“You warned me before about your punctuality,” she says, smiling despite herself. “It’s okay.” She has to assume that he ran here, but he isn’t even breathing hard. Despite the promise she made to herself to be professional, she can’t help taking him in, running her eyes over his form. His body is just like she remembered, tall and lean and broad across the shoulders. The suit fits _really_ well.

He lifts a hand up, rubbing the back of his neck. “Um, is everything all right?”

Iris blinks, embarrassed. “Yeah, sorry, I… Er. This is kind of awkward, but I have to come clean.” She swallows nervously. “About who I am, I mean.”

He makes an abortive movement towards her and then seems to remember himself. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Iris replies and takes a deep breath. “It’s just—I’m a journalist. I mean, I know _you_ know that I blog, but I’m actually—I’m a reporter. For CCPN. And, well, now my editor is on the warpath because he thinks an anonymous blogger scooped the paper, and it’s only a matter of time before he finds out it’s me. So I’m gonna have to tell him first.” She winces. “I hope you’re not upset, but…I like my job. And I’d rather not get fired, so…”

“Oh,” he says after a moment, his voice neutral.

“I’m sorry,” she offers. “I hope—I hope this doesn’t change anything. I’d still like to help you, if you’ll let me.”

“Wait, I’m confused,” he says. “Did you think that I’d run off in a huff because you’re a reporter?”

“I mean,” she says, “reporters _report_. That’s kind of the basic job description. And I know how important secrecy is to you, so I wouldn’t have blamed you if you wanted to steer clear.”

He nods. “I see. But considering that you’ve been a reporter all this time and you haven’t done anything to make me feel concerned about my anonymity or not trust you so far, I don’t see why things have to change. Unless,” he continues, tilting his head and studying her, “you think that your editor will push for you to reveal my identity…?”

She shakes her head. “No, I don’t think he will, not if it means I’d lose access to one of the biggest stories in Central City. Besides, I’d never agree to that, even if he did threaten my job. Which he wouldn’t, not for this, I don’t think.”

“Okay then,” he says simply.

“So…you’re not upset?”

He’s standing in front of a light again but his face isn’t blurred, so Iris can easily see the curve of his cheek and the white of his teeth as he smiles. “Look, I’m not surprised you’re a journalist. It explains some things, actually. And you just said you didn’t think your boss would make you try to unmask me. So, again, I don’t see why anything has to change.” He shifts slightly on his feet, the light flickering behind him. “How long have you been working for CCPN?”

“A couple years now,” she answers.

“What’s your…er, is it ‘beat?’”

She laughs. “Yeah, that’s the right word. I’m usually on community news and local features, but I’m most interested in the long-form investigative stuff. Honestly, at first I looked at the blog as sort of practice for that—you know, honing my techniques by trying to figure out what was going on in Central City.”

He starts to say something and hesitates for a moment. “So if I look you up on the CCPN masthead…?”

“Oh,” she says, startled by the realization, “I guess my own identity is no longer so secret.” Impulsively, she sticks a hand out to him. “Iris West, nice to meet you.”

He looks at her hand. The moment doesn’t last more than a beat or two, but Iris finds herself holding her breath. Then he steps forward to take it. There’s a spark as their hands touch, even through his gloves, and they both jump.

“Sorry,” he says awkwardly and she shakes her head, resisting the urge to rub her still-tingling hand on her leg. “It’s okay. Just some static.” There’s another moment of silence as they each step backward. Then he says abruptly, “What will happen to your blog, do you think?”

“Um,” she says, struggling to drag her brain back on track. “I’m not sure. I’m not going to stop reporting on the metahumans, or at least, I won’t stop unless Scott—that’s my editor—gives me a really compelling reason to. Like getting fired. But hopefully we can work something out.”

He frowns suddenly. “Are you going to publicly reveal yourself to be the author of the blog?”

Iris shrugs. “Depends, I guess, on what happens to it.”

“That—don’t you think that could be a little dangerous? Letting people know who you are?”

“You sound like my dad,” she tells him. “But I don’t think it’s really that different than reporting on organized crime or corruption. No one goes into journalism because they think it’s going to be easy. Or pay well, for that matter.”

“Iris,” he says, “I’ve seen what some of these metas can do. It’s no laughing matter.”

“You forget, Flash,” she replies, “I’ve been meeting with metahumans for a while now. You don’t need to tell me to be careful. I know what I’m doing.”

He studies her for a moment more and then nods. “Okay. But if you ever need any help, you know where to find me.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“When are you going to tell your editor?”

“Later this week,” she says with more confidence than she feels. “I wanted to talk to you first. Give you a heads-up.”

“Well,” he says, smiling at her again, “thank you for that. I appreciate it.” Then he falls silent again, just looking at her. Iris fidgets a little under his perusal, her blood warming under his gaze. It’s absurd—she doesn’t know what he really looks like, she doesn’t even know his _name_ —and yet she can’t help herself. There’s some undefinable aura about him, about being in his presence, that makes her feel nervous and comforted, all at the same time.

He says, “Was there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?”

“No. That was it.”

“Okay. Would you—would you mind letting me know how it goes?”

“Oh,” she says, surprised. “Of course.”

He chuckles. “If you do end up getting fired, I may need to have a little chat with your editor. Scott, his name was?”

Iris laughs. “Please don’t. I don’t need you to fight my battles for me. And,” she adds recklessly, “I _will_ get jealous if I hear you’ve been talking to reporters other than me.”

There’s a brief pause, and she worries for an instant that her own internal confusion has pushed things too far. Then he says, “What other reporters?” His teeth flash in the darkness as he grins at her again and with a _whoosh!_ he’s gone.

*

Once she thinks about it, Iris realizes there’s one more person she should talk to before Scott. And while she was nervous about telling the Flash, she is absolutely _dreading_ outing herself to her dad.

She heads into CCPD with more breeziness than she feels. A couple grizzled veterans she’s known all her life wave at her from one end of the bullpen and she waves back. Captain Singh is standing in the door of his office, dressing down some poor soul who probably had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Iris thinks for a minute about going over there to distract the captain and give the guy a respite, but then Eddie Thawne calls to her, diverting her attention away.

“Hey, Iris, your dad just went to the bathroom, but he’ll be right out.”

“Thanks,” she says, wandering over to their two desks and perching on her dad’s. Out of long habit she sneaks a glance at his desk but there’s no interesting looking folders left conveniently out, and anyways, she’s aware of Eddie regarding her knowingly.

“Don’t even think about it,” he says, leaning back in his chair and grinning.

She holds her hands up in mock surrender, grinning back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure,” he says, pointedly flipping closed a folder on his own desk and she laughs.

It’s not flirting, exactly—Eddie’s a nice enough guy, but he’s…well… _pretty_ is the only way to put it. And very, very blond. Not quite the type she usually goes for. She’s also not going to date her dad’s _partner_ , of all people. She’s been aware for a while that he finds her attractive and would be receptive, if she was interested. Luckily, he also has a healthy amount of self-preservation, which means that he would never do anything that might make her feel uncomfortable and risk her father’s wrath.

“And this time, don’t be late, Allen!” Singh shouts, slamming his door, and both Iris and Eddie glance over in time to see the back of the hapless dude as he scurries out. Well, _scurries_ is probably not the right word for someone who’s the same height as her dad, Iris thinks absently, just as Joe West weaves around the other man and heads towards her.

“Hey baby, did I forget lunch again?”

“No,” Iris says, standing for his kiss on the cheek. “Thought I’d surprise you.”

“That’s a nice thought,” Joe says, and then frowns at her. “Wait—what did you do?”

“ _Dad_ ,” she says, ignoring Eddie’s chuckle in the background. “Why’d you have to ruin it?”

“Gimme a minute and then we can clear out.”

Because of his comment, she deliberately does not choose her father’s favorite restaurant, instead taking them to a place near the station that serves amazing (and messy) meatball subs. The place is packed with the weekday lunch crowd, and Iris hopes that the sheer amount of people will dissuade Joe from yelling too much once she tells him.

He stares blankly at her at first. He’s never read the blog and he’s not too involved with the metahuman task force that Captain Singh implemented the previous month save where it crosses over into one of his own investigations. So it takes a few minutes for him to ping to the danger of what she’s been doing.

“Wait, Iris, you’re telling me you’ve been meeting these—these people _alone_? Without telling anyone where you’re going, who you’re seeing?”

“Dad, it’s no different than some of the work I do for the paper—”

“Wasn’t there a killer shark on the loose a couple weeks ago?”

“Yeah, but it’s not like I wanted to get an interview with _him_ , he’s a little antisocial—”

“And that guy, who could control the weather?” His voice is rising noticeably now. “And called down tornadoes in the western part of the city?”

“Sure, but—”

“Iris, are you _out of your mind_ —”

She sighs. She should have known her dad wouldn’t have a problem shouting in front of strangers.

*

“You’re joking,” Scott says, eyebrows shooting up to his hairline.

“Surprise,” Iris says weakly.

*

Scott’s irritated for about five minutes, but he’s also the youngest editor-in-chief CCPN has ever had for a very good reason. He immediately proposes that Iris moves her blog over to the CCPN website. She agrees, but not before mandating that she gets to keepthe copyright on all past material she’s already written and any future investigations she runs rather than allowing it to become CCPN property. He scowls, says “Mason talked to you, didn’t he?” and then agrees. When she mentions that she also won’t reveal the real names of the metahumans she’s interviewed unless they present a danger to the public or they specifically ask her to, he glares at her and snaps “I’m not in the business of ruining lives, Iris, this isn’t _The National Enquirer,_ ” and she relaxes a bit.

There’s a bit of surprise among the rest of the staff as the news trickles out the rest of the day but a few reporters drop by her desk with compliments on the blog and questions, which she answers cautiously (there’s no way she’s giving up any of her leads or sources, even to people on the same team). She spends some time with the digital team discussing how best to migrate her blog to CCPN’s website without screwing up all of her site architecture and then Linda drags her out for celebratory drinks after work.

 _Not fired!_ she emails the Flash that evening after finally escaping Linda’s clutches. _The blog is moving over to CCPN’s website but other than that, things should be mostly the same._

 _Are you happy with that?_ he replies later that night. _Is that what you want?_

 _It means I get to expense stuff now,_ Iris writes back, _so yeah, I’m not complaining._

_What sort of things do you need expenses for? Not being judgmental, just curious._

_You know, coffee and chocolate when I’m on a stake-out, brownies for when I’m trying to make a deadline. Brain food._

_Remind me to tell you what brain food actually is._

_Oh Flash. We have such a good thing going. Don’t ruin it with science._

*

For the most part, the integration of her blog into CCPN’s website goes smoothly. She has to persuade some metas that increased exposure via the CCNP website is a good thing as it will help legitimize the metahuman community in the eyes of the rest of the world. Once the blog is fully incorporated, she starts to receive even more tips about potential metahumans, and a few new metas reach out to her directly. Scott’s given her carte blanche to work the metahuman beat full-time for the moment, and she spends several days tracking down leads and setting up interviews. Her first couple pieces seem to be well-received and she’s thrilled when some local radio outlets start citing her in their own reporting on metahumans and asking her for comment. Scott’s cheerful enough about the increased hits the website is now getting thanks to her blog that he even mentions the possibility of a raise. She’s been in the media business long enough to know that there will be folks who aren’t so happy about the increased exposure the metas are getting, and she does get some hate mail but nothing that any journalist (or female writer on the internet, as Linda points out) hasn’t seen before.

Iris probably should have expected the reaction from CCPD. As it is, when Captain Singh’s assistant calls one morning to ask if she can come in that afternoon, Iris at first assumes it has to do with her father. She can’t get through to either him or Eddie, of course, so after leaving a couple worried messages, she heads over to the police department. She realizes her mistake when she walks into Singh’s office and sees the DA, Cecile Horton, sitting in one of the chairs opposite Singh’s desk.

“What’s going on?” she asks, halting in the doorway.

“Iris,” Captain Singh says, “please sit down.” She glances involuntarily out into the bullpen but neither her father nor Eddie are anywhere in sight.

“They’re working a case,” the captain says, reading her thoughts. “Should be back later today.”

“So this isn’t about my father?” she says guardedly, sliding into the open chair.

“Not at all,” Cecile says, smiling at her. Iris doesn’t return her smile. She’s met the woman several times, knows her father respects the DA enormously, but she can’t shake the feeling that she’s being ambushed.

“It’s about your blog, actually,” Singh says. “The metahuman blog.”

Iris sits back, neutrally. “Ah.”

“I have to congratulate you, actually,” Singh says, “you’ve had quite the success over the past half year with it. I’m impressed.”

Long experience with her father has taught Iris the value of staying quiet. She has a good idea of what’s coming, but decides to let them take as much time as they want to get to the point. “We were wondering if you’d help us get in touch with some of them. We have questions relating to a number of…events.”

“I’m not sure I feel comfortable doing that,” Iris replies. “Most of these people have spoken to me on condition of anonymity.”

“And we understand that, of course,” Horton says smoothly, “but some of the metahumans you’ve interviewed have gone on to commit crimes. Or at least, we suspect them of doing so. Finding proof has been…more difficult.”

Iris pauses, thinking. “Do you—are you telling me that you have court orders for any of this? For any specific metahuman?”

Horton, to her credit, looks a bit uncomfortable. “No, we’re not saying that.”

“Merely,” Singh says, “that we hoped you might help us out, given our longstanding…uh…friendship.” He also looks a bit awkward, and Iris can’t help but smiling at him. She’s known the man for years, after all. But nevertheless she says, “With all due respect, Captain, Ms. Horton, I don’t think I can do that. Furthermore,” she adds before they can jump in, “I think I have an obligation to discuss this with my editors and CCPN’s lawyers as well. Just to make sure I understand how this all works, of course.”

Singh nods wryly. “Understood. Thanks for coming in, Iris.”

She nods back and stands to leave.

“Just one more thing—you should know that your father put in for the metahuman task force.”

“I—oh. Okay.” This is yet another thing she probably should have anticipated, and didn’t. Iris sighs.

“We turned him down,” Singh says. “There’s no way that would have gone over well, to have Detective West on the force policing metahumans when his daughter is one of the most recognizable faces interacting with them publicly.”

“You can blame me for that one,” Horton added. “The DA’s office didn’t like the optics of it.”

“Right,” Iris says slowly. “Well. Thanks for telling me.”

They nod her out and she books it out of there, not wanting to run into Joe, and heads back to work.

“Well, that was predictable,” Scott says when she finishes telling him about the meeting. “Let me talk to our publisher and the lawyers, get their read on things, and then we’ll bring you back in.”

“I know the names of some of these metas,” Iris says, “but not everyone. The ones I don’t know, I didn’t push for too hard at the time because I thought getting the interview in the first place was more important. I was never interested in publicly unmasking people who don’t seem to constitute a threat, or who are actively trying to help Central City.”

Scott nods. “I understand. Regarding the the metas whose names you don’t already know, you may want to continue to stay in the dark—for their protection as much as yours. Of course, the police will be after your notes, whatever contact information you do have, but still.” He purses his lips, thinking for a moment,and then smiles reassuringly at her. “Don’t worry. You’re not the first reporter who’s had cops knocking down their door for information. We’ll handle it. In the meantime, if anyone from the department or the DA’s office approaches you, refer them to me. Oh, and Iris,” he says, his eyes going steely, “You can’t talk about this with your father. I know you know that, but it has to be said.”

“I know,” Iris says. “I can handle him.”

“Good,” says Scott. “Now go back to work.”

*

Most of her interviews are about as run-of-the-mill as can be expected as far as metahumans go, but there had been one, with a young man who had refused to discuss his powers with her, that had struck her as a little off. He’s cagey and awkward and while she could have just chalked it up to nerves, she _was_ raised by Joe West. Despite what he may think, Iris knows when to be cautious. When he asks to meet with her again after the blog goes public, she decides to bring back-up.

“Have you ever worn an earpiece before?” the Flash asks, handing her the little bud.

“I’m a reporter, not a superhero,” she replies. “We don’t have the budget for fancy tech like this, anyways.” He chuckles and she smiles as she puts the piece into her ear, carefully adjusting her hair back down. “So how does this work?”

He zips away, leaving her alone on the Jitters rooftop. “Can you hear me?” His voice is in her ear, warm and immediate.

“Yes. How about me?”

“Loud and clear.” With a _whoosh!_ he’s back on the rooftop with her, skidding a little on the ground as he comes to a stop next to her. Without thinking, Iris reaches out to steady him, hands clasping his arm and his hip.

There’s no spark as they touch this time but he freezes all the same. He begins blurring his face but doesn’t move out of her grasp. The material of his suit is strange, not quite cloth and not quite rubber. She can feel the heat from his body, transmitted through the layers to her fingertips, can make out the shape of his hip and his bicep under her palms. Iris flushes and steps away, dropping her hands. “Sorry.”

He clears his throat. “Not your fault. I should have been more careful.”

“Right,” she says with a brightness that feels forced, “so we know the earpiece works. You’ll stay out of sight during the interview unless something goes wrong—”

“And if it does, I run you out of there,” he finishes, obviously choosing to follow her lead and ignore the weirdness of the previous moment.

“Hopefully it won’t come to that.” She checks the time on her phone and says, “Oh crap, he’ll be here any moment. Shoo!” She’s glad when he laughs at her motioning him away and then he zooms off somewhere and she’s alone again.

Iris doesn’t have to wait very long for the young meta, whose name, somewhat incongruously, is Darren. He comes slouching out onto the rooftop and says, “Nice view” without ever taking his eyes off of her. It’s not quite enough to rattle her; she’s not sure if that was meant to be a come-on or just unsettling but she figures that ignoring it is her safest bet.

“Thanks for meeting me again,” she says instead, trying for warm. Her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes but Darren has only met her once before. Hopefully he won’t notice her insincerity.

“I see you’ve continued to write about the metahumans for CCPN,” he says, coming towards her.

She frowns. “Well, yes. That’s my primary focus now.”

Darren stops just inside of what would normally be considered the limits of her personal space. Iris raises her chin to meet his gaze but doesn’t back away since that’s so clearly what he hopes she’ll do. “I’ve been reading your past stories, Iris West. That one you wrote, about the county fair? And the one before that, on the replacement sewers they’re putting in on Fifth? _Riveting_ stuff.”

She maintains eye contact, waiting for him to make his point.

“Before you began your little blog, you were stuck writing about things no one cared about. You got all the boring work. None of your stories had ever been on the front page. And now?” He moves closer. “You’re on the homepage. You’re on the front page. I even heard you on the radio the other day.”

“Darren,” she begins to say, but he sneers at her. “You’re not even a metahuman yourself. You just like exposing our secrets for your own gain.”

“That’s not true—”

“ _Iris_ ,” says the Flash in her ear, his tone a warning. Before she can react, one of Darren’s hands close around the bare skin of her neck, fingers digging painfully in, and the world falls over.

*

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clearly this is a universe where newspapers have a lot more money than ours do.


	3. Part Three

For a moment, Barry can’t move, frozen in shock after Iris and the meta blink out of existence. He takes a breath, about to patch into STAR Labs and get Cisco on it when he hears her voice through the earpiece. She’s swearing.

“Iris? IRIS! _Where are you?_ ”

“Where are we?” he hears her say. “We’re not…is this _Gotham_?”

“I’m coming,” he says and starts running.

He’s the Flash, but it still feels like an eternity before he reaches Gotham’s outskirts. He’s only been there once before, years ago, and has no knowledge of the city’s layout. Iris had mentioned seeing Wayne Enterprises from the rooftop of wherever the meta had taken her but that building’s smack in the middle of downtown and does little to narrow down her location.

“Cisco, I need you to track the location of the earpiece you gave me for Iris,” Barry says urgently.

“Whaaa—”

“I’ll explain later, just _do it_.”

“Are you—why are you in Gotham?!”

“Cisco!”

“Okay, okay…got it! Twenty North Wacker Drive, looks like the rooftop…” As Cisco feeds him directions, Barry takes off again.

As he crests the top of the building, he slows time and sees Iris, mercifully standing several feet away from the meta. He picks her up and continues running down the other side of the building, only stopping when they’re several blocks away. Her eyes are glassy with shock when he finally puts her down. “Are you okay?”

She stumbles a little and blinks several times, clearly bewildered. “What…?”

“Iris,” he says, taking her face between his gloved hands. “You’re safe, I’ve got you. Did he hurt you?” She grabs hold of his wrists, focusing on his face as she straightens. “Yes, yes, I’m fine. I’m all right.”

“Stay here.”

He doesn’t really expect Darren to still be on the roof but checks all the same. Barry’s not sure exactly how he’s supposed to subdue and transport him at any rate—he’ll have to talk to the rest of Team Flash first.

Iris is inspecting her legs when he returns. Her knees are bloody and her throat looks chafed. Barry has to wrestle back down the wave of fury that rises at the sight. “You said he didn’t hurt you?”

Something of his anger clearly comes through but she merely shrugs. “When we—landed? I guess? on the rooftop, he let go of me. I wasn’t expecting it and fell on my knees. Not a big deal.”

“I can take you to a doctor I know,” he says recklessly but she shakes her head. “It’s just a scrape, Flash. Give me some band-aids and I’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah.” She bites her lip. “Darren?”

“Gone,” Barry says. “You clearly didn’t know he could do…that.”

Iris shakes her head. “Nope, not a clue. He’s a teleporter of some sort—have you ever seen that before?”

“Yeah,” Barry says, thinking back to Shawna Baez, “but that meta wasn’t able to make leaps like he did.”

“It was weird—it felt like something was sucking me somewhere, but everything happened so quickly, I wasn’t really able to process what was happening in time. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. Don’t worry. We’ll find him, I promise.”

She nods. “I guess…I’d better get home. Do you—I can get a train?”

His lips curl up despite the gravity of the situation. “I can carry you.”

“Oh,” she says hesitantly. “I didn’t want to—you’re sure? It’s kind of far…”

“Iris,” he says, still grinning. “You’re like five feet tall. You weigh nothing. It’s not a problem.”

She feigns annoyance. “I will have you know that I’m five- _four_ , how dare you.”

“ _Really?_ ” he says skeptically. “Five-four? You’re obviously about a foot and a half shorter than me, what system are you using to measure—”

“Wow, the Flash is kind of a jerk, good to know,” she says, swatting him, but she’s smiling as she says it and his heart lifts, relieved to see that she seems calmer. He says, “Here, hold onto me,” and scoops her up. He’s not sure but he thinks her breath catches a little. “Ready?”

She nods, her eyes locked onto his, arms wrapped around his neck, and Barry knows he should be blurring his face but he can’t bring himself to care.

They run home.

*

The Flash has green eyes. And freckles. His lashes are obnoxiously long, and he is strong enough to run all the way from Gotham with her in his arms.

Granted, it took no time at all, but _still_.

In the safety and privacy of her bathtub, Iris closes her eyes and recalls the feeling of his shoulders under her hands, exactly as muscled as she’d imagined them to be. She can remember the way his body had moved and flexed against her as he’d run. It’s not a stretch to imagine him moving against her in quite another context. Iris slips a hand down her body and allows her imagination to take over, allows her legs to fall open the way she’d like to do, with him. Pretends he’s the one touching her with hands she’s never actually seen but has felt, vividly.

It doesn’t take long for her to come. After, she sighs and sits up, sloshing water all over the place and scrubbing a hand down her face. Intellectually she knows what’s happening: it’s not every day that a girl is rescued by an actual superhero. Added on top of the frisson she’d already been feeling around him and it’s hardly surprising that she’d develop a full-blown crush on the Flash, despite not knowing things like his name or what he looks like without a mask.

She _should_ be trying to find out everything she can about Darren and his abilities. She should be worrying about what he may do in the future, and taking steps to protect herself from him. She should be thinking about whoever the Flash so obviously works with, like the doctor he’d mentioned, and wondering how they fit into things. Instead, she’s sitting in rapidly cooling bathwater and fantasizing about someone who probably has, like, a superhero girlfriend because why wouldn’t he? (And _that_ is definitely not a road that Iris wants to go down either; she’s going to make herself crazy otherwise.)

It’s fine. She’s fine. So she has a crush, so what? She knows that nothing is going to happen, and as long as she can just _be cool_ around him, they can continue on like they have been.

Eventually, she hauls her wrinkled, prune-y body out of the bathtub and sticks some bandaids across the scrapes on her knees. The skin of her throat is a little sore but luckily Darren didn’t grab her hard enough to leave bruises. She dresses in comfortable clothes and flips open her laptop, starting the tedious process of trying to track down more information about Darren.

*

“Another teleporter?” Caitlin repeats. “ _Really?_ ”

“But he doesn’t need to see where he’s going, like Peek-A-Boo,” Barry says. “He teleported to _Gotham_.”

“Unless he has super vision too!” Cisco says. “I wonder exactly how far…” He dashes over to a workstation and starts typing madly.

“Look, he’s clearly targeting Iris,” Barry says. “We have to figure out a way to stop him and protect her.”

“How’s she doing?” asks Caitlin. “Did any of her vitals seem off after he teleported with her?”

Barry blinks at her. “I…have no idea how I would have checked those things, Caitlin.”

“You could have brought her back here,” Dr. Wells says evenly. Barry transfers his stare from Caitlin to him.

“I thought you were against me talking to her in the first place! Now you want me to bring her to STAR Labs?”

Dr. Wells shrugs. “Iris seems important to you, so…”

Barry shakes off his bewilderment. “I’m not going to expose you guys, not even to her, not if I don’t have to. She said she was fine, and I trust that she’d know if anything was off.”

“Oh, she’d know, with her extensive medical background?” Caitlin inquires acidly.

“What do you want me to do—take a blood sample or something?”

Caitlin tilts her head, considering. “That would be a start, actually. Do you know how to do that or do you want me to walk you through it?”

“Ugh,” Barry says. “Fine. You’d better show me how so I don’t mess it up and accidentally sever an artery or something.”

She wrinkles her nose at him. “I just want you to prick her finger, Barry, it’s not a surgical procedure.”

“Easy for you to say,” he mutters. “In the meantime, can we rig up, like, a panic button or something for her? With a tracker?” Barry looks at Cisco. “That way, even if Darren surprises her, she has a fighting chance of alerting us and I can get to her.”

Cisco nods. “I actually have something in my workroom that’s nearly perfect—can you give me a bit to make some adjustments?”

An hour later, Barry stands outside Iris’s apartment building. He’d looked up her cell earlier and dials it now, hoping she’s still awake.

“Hello?”

“Iris? It’s—it’s me. The Flash?”

“You don’t sound too sure about that,” she says, voice amused.

“Oh, I mean…well. It is me. I’m in front of your apartment—can I come up?”

“Of course,” she says and he zooms up the side of the building, coming to a stop on her tiny balcony. He taps the glass and sees her jump and turn around. She tosses the phone down and strides over, unlocking the door.

“Jesus, you scared the crap out of me.”

“Sorry. This is a lot easier than the front door.”

“Huh,” she says. “I guess that balcony’s finally useful for something. Do you—do you want to come in? Should I turn off the lights or something?” She must see his hesitation, because she adds, “I did see your face, earlier. Or at least, you know, the bottom half. But you should know, I _definitely_ will not be trying to figure out your identity either way. CCPD and the DA are a little too interested in the identities of the metas I’ve interviewed, and I need to preserve _some_ plausible deniability. So.”

“Oh,” Barry says, a little hollowly. He hadn’t been actively thinking about letting her in on his identity; he did still want to protect Dr. Wells, Caitlin, and Cisco's involvement. But there’d been a part of him that had thought that maybe, it’d be nice if she knew who Barry Allen was. If one day, when she came to CCPD, it’d be him she was visiting. It’s a half-formed thought, one he hasn’t allowed himself to think about in-depth, but her decisive tone now makes something in his heart twist.

“Is that—unless, of course, you want to let the world know who you are?” she says carefully and his heart sinks further. Of course: she’s a journalist. Finding out his identity would all be in service of the greater story. He mentally shakes himself. “No,” he says firmly. “At least, not right now. It’s better people don’t know. But since you’ve already seen me in the mask, you may as well keep the lights on. I’d feel silly talking to you in the dark.”

“It’s not much different than before,” she points out.

“Yeah, but we’re inside this time,” Barry replies. “It’s kind of weird.”

“Okay,” Iris says, shrugging, and steps back to let him in.

She’s wearing a pair of those legging things every girl seems to own and an overlarge, faded CCPD sweatshirt that hangs partially off one bare shoulder. Her hair’s swept up carelessly, off her neck, and she’s not wearing any makeup. Despite the hour, she looks fresh and beautiful and smells faintly of citrus. Barry swallows and forces his attention away, taking in her apartment. A little kitchenette and a breakfast bar take up the far end and a comfortable-looking couch sits opposite a television with her laptop open on the coffee table. Next to the television, a door opens off to her bedroom. He can see one corner of the unmade bed, purple duvet thrown back. It’s small but feels homey, with bright prints on the walls and photos stuck to the fridge. Some of the photos are of Iris and friends or coworkers but the most feature her with her parents and a boy who must be her brother.

“Do you want a tour?” Her voice, amused again, snaps his focus back to her.

“Uh, sorry,” Barry says again. “Didn’t mean to be nosy.”

Iris smiles indulgently. “I’m a reporter, remember? Nosy’s basically my middle name.”

Since she doesn’t seem upset by his interest, he says, “You mentioned your brother, the first night we met. He’s younger than you?”

She follows his gaze to the photos on the fridge and then turns back. “Yeah. He’s just finishing up his degree at CCU in engineering. Electrical? Or no, mechanical, I think. And don’t ask me to be more specific than that, because I usually zone out whenever he starts going off about it.”

“A friend of mine was Mech-E,” Barry says thoughtlessly.

“Is he a superhero, too?” she asks and then laughs at his stricken expression. “Never mind. Like I said, I don’t want to know.” She pauses, and then continues, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m glad you have friends. I’d hate for you to be, I don’t know, some sort of loner vigilante operating out of a basement or whatever.”

Barry doesn’t quite know what to say to that, so he just nods awkwardly back at her and says, “How are you feeling?”

She sighs, perching on one arm of the couch. “I’m okay. I was a bit freaked out earlier, but after thinking about it, I realized I shouldn’t really be surprised. It was probably bound to happen sooner or later.”

“Being kidnapped?”

She shrugs. “Until there are more reporters covering metahumans, I’m the most visible and easily accessible target.”

“To that end,” Barry says, “I actually have something that will help with that.” He pulls out the tracking device and she raises a brow.“You got me a Fitbit?”

“No, it’s a tracking device that looks like a Fitbit.”

“Oooh, how cool!” She holds out her hand and he carefully snaps it in place around her delicate wrist, fumbling a little around his gloves.

“See that button, there?” He points. “Push it, and we— _I’ll_ get an emergency notification. It’ll also automatically start tracking your location.”

“How very James Bond of you,” she says, inspecting the device. “This is awesome.”

“I’m still not sure how to stop Darren, but at least I’ll know how to find you, if—if he comes back.”

“Thanks,” she says, her eyes softening as she looks up at him.

Barry averts his gaze. “I also need to take some of your blood. If you don’t mind.”

She’s clearly taken aback by his request. “Oh. Really? What are you going to do with my blood?”

“Just some tests,” he says. “Uh—there were some questions over whether teleporting with that guy affected you in any way—I doubt it did,” he adds hastily when she begins to look alarmed, “but better safe than sorry, right?”

“Sure, I guess,” she says uncertainly. “How do we do this?”

Luckily, Iris isn’t squeamish about blood, and she’s so enchanted by the tiny glass vial that Caitlin had given him that she barely even reacts to the finger prick.

“One last thing—this number will get routed straight to me—to my earpiece. So you can get in touch with me faster than email.”

Iris takes the proffered slip of paper with his number and waggles her brows at him. “So does this mean you wear the suit all the time?”

He rolls his eyes. “What do you think?”

“Oh, good,” she replies. “‘Cause I can see how it’d get in the way in _certain_ scenarios.” Then she freezes, eyes going wide. “Like going to the bathroom! Is what I was referring to. Um.”

Barry successfully hides his smile and says, “Even superheroes have to shower some time.”

She makes a funny little face, nodding. “Can I text you, too? Does it, like, do text to voice?”

“Er…something like that.”

“Okay. Well. Thanks for the Fitbit.”

He can’t hide his smile this time. “Of course.”

“Will you let me know about the test results? From the blood work?”

“Yeah. Again, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.” In his ordinary, non-superhero life, Barry would have reached out a comforting hand to her. She looks small and fragile, sitting on the arm of the couch, but he thinks he’s already broken too many of his self-imposed rules already. “Well, I’d better go,” he says lamely, moving towards the door and she bobs her head in acknowledgement. Then a sudden thought makes him turn back to her.

“Hey, about what Darren said,” Barry says, trying to keep his voice casual, “about your stories, from before. I read them, too. They’re good. You care about people, Iris, you care about the people you write about and it shows. Even if they’re not, you know, of national interest or whatever. A lesser writer might not have bothered to care. They might have been dismissive. But you’re not, and it’s why people trust you. It’s what makes you good.”

She’s staring at him, eyes wide. He doesn’t trust himself near her with the way she’s looking at him, so he just nods at her and leaves quietly.

*

“Iris, oh my god.” Linda sits back in her chair, hand over her mouth and eyes wide. “You have _got_ to tell Scott.”

“No way.” Iris sets her coffee down with an emphatic click. Unusually for a weekday morning, Jitters is fairly empty, but she still takes care to keep her voice lowered. “I’ve worked too hard to have some asshole scare me off and take this away from me, especially since that’s what he wants to happen. If I tell Scott, he’ll freak out and pull me from this beat. Or he’ll tell my dad, who will lock me in my old bedroom and never let me see the light of day again.”

“Come on, Iris, they should know. I mean, I get death threats whenever I write something remotely complimentary about the Cardinals, but no one’s ever tried to _kidnap_ me before. This guy—you have no idea where he could take you next time! He could leave you in, like, Antartica or something and we’d have _no idea_.”

“Antartica?” Iris scoffs and then starts to think about it. “Huh. I wonder how far he can teleport?” At Linda’s look, she sighs and says, “I’m not totally oblivious to the danger, okay? But I’ve got the Flash on my side. We’re handling it, I promise.”

Linda scowls down at her own drink, an offensively flavored drink that barely rates the term _coffee_. “Will you at least consider telling Mason?”

Iris pauses. “Maybe. But I’m not convinced he wouldn’t turn around and tell Scott, either.”

“I don’t think he would. But just think about it, will you? He has more experience with this kind of stuff.”

“All right, I will,” Iris replies. “But in the meantime…”

“Ugh, yes, _fine_. I won’t say anything. But from here on out I’m going to text you every three hours and you’d better respond within twenty minutes or I’m calling your dad.”

“I love you too,” Iris returns and Linda rolls her eyes. Then she glances down, frowning. “Is that a Fitbit?”

Several days later, Iris gets a text from the number she’d programed into her phone as “Aunt Muriel” (she figured that was a fairly uninteresting name unlikely to spur suspicion from anyone save her father and Wally): _Tests all finished. Nothing in your blood reads as abnormal. Although I’m supposed to tell you that you may be slightly anemic and should go eat a hamburger or two._

_Luckily I love hamburgers. Thanks for letting me know._

_NP. Hope all is well with you._

She’s about to respond but something makes her stop. With a regular guy, her impulse would have been another teasing response that would have hopefully led to more texting. But he _isn’t_ a regular guy. He’s the Flash. And she doesn’t have any meta-human information to give him tonight so there’s no real reason to continue the conversation.

Iris closes the messages app. She goes to bed instead.

If she dreams, she doesn’t remember.

*

Barry tries not to read too much into the fact that he and Iris are the exact same age. He checks his elementary yearbooks from before he'd moved and he finds her picture there. They’d never been in the same grade school classes but if he’d remained in Central City they might have shared some in middle or high school. Barry no longer has any friends from elementary school; when he’d moved back to Central City after college, he’d not bothered to look any of them up, not wanting the awkwardness.

He wonders if Iris had ever heard about him, about the kid whose mother was murdered by an intruder when they were in the fifth grade and the mental breakdown all the authorities claimed he’d suffered as a result of finding her body. How else were they to explain how he’d described the scene, with a masked man in yellow who could run faster than the eye could see? _The kid’s had a traumatic experience_ , all the psychologists said, _it’s not uncommon for them to make up fantastical stories to help them cope with their feelings._

Henry Allen had blamed himself, for being stuck in the hospital on the night of the murder, for not being there for Nora when she needed him, and for not providing his son the mental support he needed later to deal with her murder. After, he’d moved his son to National City, hoping the change in scenery would do Barry good. Barry, for his part, could never quite forgive his father for giving up so easily on finding Nora’s killer. He didn’t blame Henry for not believing _him_ ; what rational person would?

But if the events since the particle accelerator exploded had taught Barry anything, it’s that the impossible could actually be possible. He hasn’t told his father about becoming the Flash, any more than he’d told Henry the real reason he’d moved back to Central City. He’s going to find his mother’s killer. Now that he’s the Flash, he has the resources to do it. But he knows he can’t do it alone.

 _Hey, I have a favor to ask_ , he texts. _Have you ever heard any mention of another speedster? Like me, but not me?_

_Can you be more specific than ‘like me but not me?’_

_He wears yellow._

_Hmmm, I haven’t, but let me ask around. Where did you last encounter him?_

_Oh, it was awhile ago_ , Barry responds, trying to be vague. _Sorry, I know that’s not helpful._

 _I’ll check it out and get back to you_.

 _Thanks_.

He feels a little guilty involving Iris without giving more details, but she’d been pretty clear on not wanting to know his true identity. And if Barry’s being totally honest, he doesn’t really want to tell her, not about this. He doesn’t want anything to change the way she thinks about him. He doesn’t want her pity.

She continues to draw a blank on Darren, and there’s nothing that he or Cisco can track down that helps either. He’d even reached out to Felicity to see if there was something she could pull, but the lack of any results leads them to conclude that the meta had given Iris a fake name. With no photos or DNA to work off of, they’re stuck at a dead end. The only positive is that he has not made any attempt to contact Iris further. Barry doesn’t relax his guard, exactly, but there’s not a lot any of them can do until the meta resurfaces.

Several weeks later, Barry, Cisco, and Caitlin are in line at a Starbucks when someone calls his name. He swings around and sees Patty Spivot, a uniform at CCPD, walk up, coffee in hand. They’ve spoken a few times at the station, consultations on cases and the usual office chit-chat, but this is the first time he’s ever seen her outside of CCPD.

“Hey, Patty, how’re you doing?”

“All right, and yourself?” He shrugs to imply _not bad_ , and she continues, “I was actually going to track you down this week—I was hoping to ask you about something.”

“Oh, sure,” he says easily. “What’s up?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about becoming a CSI, actually, but I’m concerned about the coursework involved, given the undergrad degrees I have. Would you mind if I set up a time to pick your brain, ask you about what you went through?”

“Yeah, that’s no problem,” Barry replies. “When you want to chat, just come up to my lab, or I can come find you at your desk?”

“Sure,” she says, smiling at him, “or we can grab coffee or something?”

He nods. “Hey, whatever works, just let me know.”

“Cool,” she says. “I’d also love to get your opinion on which schools I should be applying to—I have some ideas but would love your input.”

“I can definitely help with that,” Barry says. “Again, just let me know.”

“All right, will do,” Patty says and then checks her watch. “Er…well, I’d better run, actually. Don’t want to be late for my shift.”

“See you around,” Barry says, and she gives a little wave and heads off.

Barry turns back into the Starbucks line, which has annoyingly not progressed further.

“Dude,” Cisco says. Barry glances at his friends. They’re both staring at him.

“What?”

“Who _was_ that?”

Barry shrugs, confused. “Just a woman from work.”

“ _Really_ ,” Caitlin says, in her _you’re-too-dumb-to-live_ voice.

“What?” Caitlin and Cisco exchange looks, and Barry feels his irritation mounting. “Seriously, what the hell?”

“She’s really pretty,” Cisco says. “Like, _really_ pretty.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Barry says, shrugging again. “Why are you being weird?”

“ _Dude_. She was totally trying to ask you out and you _didn’t even notice_.”

“No, she wasn’t,” Barry scoffs. “She’s curious about becoming a CSI, you heard her.”

“Barry, I love you,” Caitlin says, “but you have no idea when a woman is interested in you.”

“That’s…not true,” Barry protests. His mind flashes back to the hitch in Iris’s breath when he picked her up, the way her face looked right before he left her apartment.

Cisco says, “Trust me, she was.”

“Okay, fine, whatever,” Barry says. “Can we please stop talking about it?”

“So you’re not interested?” Cisco asks.

“No,” Barry says. “I mean, I don’t know. I’ve literally never thought about it before.”

Cisco opens his mouth to reply but Caitlin interjects, “All right, we’ll stop pestering you about Patty.” She shoots a death glare at Cisco, who subsides, making a face.

“Thank you, _jeez_ ,” Barry says. There’s a lull in the conversation as they finally make the counter and place their orders.

“So,” Caitlin says casually as they move down to the end of the counter to wait for their drinks. “Have you seen Iris lately?”

“You read the information she sent the other day,” Barry says, “about that meta in Keystone.”

“Yes, but have you _seen_ her?”

“No,” Barry says suspiciously. “But I mean, we talk. Why?”

“Oh, just wondering,” Caitlin says. “How’s she doing, with all the teleporter stuff?”

“She says she’s fine,” Barry replies. “And he hasn’t shown up again. I think she’s just trying to get on with her life, keep doing her job as well as she can. She says she doesn’t want to let Darren win.”

“She said that, huh?” Caitlin grabs her drink as it comes up and takes a sip. “It’s nice that she has you to talk about this stuff.”

Barry rolls his eyes and stays silent, aware that she’s just fishing.

“I’ve been reading her work in the newspaper. She’s a good writer.”

“She’s been on the radio a bit, too,” Cisco adds. “I like her voice. Does she sound like that in person?”

“Yes,” Barry says, and then frowns. “Wait, sound like what, exactly?” He doesn’t miss the look that passes between Caitlin and Cisco. “Never mind, I don’t want to know what you think she sounds like.”

“I don’t mind telling you.”

“Please stop.”

“She sounds se—”

“I hate both of you.”

*

Darren has remained frustratingly elusive to track down, which is both irritating and strangely relieving. The only time she sees the Flash is at the scene of a burning building: he’s just rescued several apartments-worth of people and she arrives at the tail end, before the police and fire department are able to cordon off the area. She gets several interviews in before she’s ushered away by a uniform she’s known for years (“Come on, Iris, you know we can’t give you a free pass”). As she ducks under the newly strung police tape, a crackle of lightning catches her eye and she glances up. The Flash has come to a stop in the shadow of another building, watching her. When she meets his eyes, he gives her a jaunty salute, grinning, and then vanishes.

She has to forcibly remind herself to stop smiling before turning back to the scene.

In the weeks that follow, they don't meet in person, which she thinks is probably good for her personal sense of equanimity, but they’ve continued to text and talk as the occasion calls for it. Her pleasure at seeing “Aunt Muriel” come up on her phone is practically Pavlovian at this point, which is definitely _not_ good for her equanimity, but she figures there’s no purpose in worrying about it overmuch. It is what it is.

After one particularly long day at CCPN, Iris comes home anticipating a night spent quietly with no outside distractions, just herself, her Thai takeout, and a glass or three of wine. One of the photo interns had accidentally downloaded a virus that had brought CCPN’s network down for a good chunk of the day, leading to a lot of scrambling and even more yelling. Linda had suggested shots as a stress-reliever, but Iris isn’t in the mood for hard alcohol or socialization. She stops in the hallway outside her apartment, scrounging around in her bag for her keys. Before she can get them out, the door opens to reveal Captain Cold, smirking down at her.

“Hello, Iris,” he says. “Won’t you come in?”

*

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my mental map, Central City is IRL Kansas City, MO, and Gotham is Chicago. Also, I apologize if any of the Patty stuff isn’t quite in-line with canon but because I love myself I’m not gonna rewatch any of 2A just to confirm those details. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	4. Part Four

She freezes, staring at him, and he opens the door further to reveal his cold gun gripped in his other hand. “Now now, relax. I’d hate for you to do anything hasty. I’m not here to hurt you.”

Cold steps backward and she moves past him into her apartment, shaking off her coat and hanging it up. As she does, she discretely pushes the button on her pretend Fitbit, internally kicking herself for not testing it out before. _Oh well_ , she thinks, _either it works or it doesn’t_. Captain Cold, aka Leonard Snart, seems more smarmy than murder-y, but she knows he’s been responsible for a string of heists that had left several bank and museum employees badly injured. He may look like a jackass but his cold gun is very real. She turns back around to face him, mentally girding herself for whatever the hell he wants.

“Iris West,” he drawls, still smirking, and she begins to wonder if that’s his default expression. “I’ve been following your work. Your last article was a real page-turner.”

Her last article had been about a meta who’d developed the ability to speed-read entire novels in a matter of minutes. Despite the situation, Iris can’t help rolling her eyes. “What do you want?”

“A friendly chat,” he says, walking over to the couch and dropping down. His gun is still clutched in his hand.

“Where are Heatwave and Golden Glider?”

“Oh, they’re running errands of their own.” He waves his free hand casually. “I didn’t need them for this.”

She stays where she is, still standing. “And what is ‘this,’ exactly?”

“Like I said. A friendly chat. About our mutual scientist friend.”

Iris blinks at him, mentally running through the list of metas who are also scientists. None of them would have been of much interest to Snart, she doesn’t think. “I’m not following.”

“Oh, Iris, don’t be coy. I need to talk to him. And I’m also not particularly happy with him at the moment, so I figured going to see you would be the fastest way to upset him in return, given that—” He breaks off abruptly, gazing at her intently. “Oh, _dear_. I just assumed you knew who he was. Oh, this is _awkward_.” He laughs.

“What are you talking about?” she grates out between clenched teeth, although she thinks she knows now who he’s referring to.

She’s not wrong: “The Flash!” Snart chortles. “You don’t know who he is, do you?” He sobers suddenly, studying her. “I wonder why he hasn’t told you? I just assumed that he’d want his biographer to know _all_ about him—”

“I am _not_ —” Iris begins heatedly, before a bolt of lighting fills the apartment. The Flash slams Cold against the wall, his forearm braced under the other man’s chin.

“The _hell_ are you doing here, Snart?!”

“You weren’t taking my calls,” Snart manages to say around the Flash’s arm. “I thought your little fangirl might have a direct line.” His eyes move to Iris over the Flash’s shoulder, glittering maliciously. “Guess I was right.”

“She’s not…” the Flash says and then breaks off. With another clap of lightning, the two disappear out the open balcony door.

Iris breathes out slowly. “Well,” she says to her now-silent apartment, “at least we know the Fitbit works.”

*

“Are you all right?” Barry asks, coming to a halt in Iris’s living room. She jumps in surprise, her laptop sliding off her lap. He catches it easily, handing it back to her.

“I should put a bell on you,” she mutters before closing the computer and setting it on her coffee table. “And I’m fine. Snart’s an obnoxious prick, but he didn’t do anything.” She finally gets a good look at him and her eyes widen. “Are _you_ okay?”

Barry knows he must look terrible: there’s a bruise darkening his jaw and he’s got scorch marks on his suit. Cisco is _not_ going to be happy. “I’m fine.”

She stands, reaching for his face. “Let me look at you.”

“It’s fine, really,” he repeats weakly but doesn’t stop her from taking hold of his chin, turning his face so she can see the bruise. Her fingers are cool against his skin. “Did Captain Cold do this?”

“No,” he says shortly. At her raised brow, he adds, “Really, it’s better that you…not know.”

Her mouth tightens but she doesn’t respond, dropping his chin and heading into her kitchen. She fills a dishcloth with some ice and brings it back to him, holding it against his jaw. “I’m only going to ask this once: Are you helping Leonard Snart?”

Barry sighs, taking the dishcloth from her. “It’s complicated, Iris.”

“He’s a criminal!”

“Believe me, I know. I’m not—nothing that happened was illegal. At least,” he amends, “not really.” It was more or less true: Snart had wanted Barry's help tracking down his father, who was even more devious and unprincipled than his son. Snart senior had not appreciated being found by the Flash and the resulting “discussion” had been rather…explosive. Since this was hardly out of the realm of the ordinary where any of the Snarts were concerned, Barry hadn’t been surprised, merely annoyed. He’d been more annoyed that Leonard had thought to go anywhere near Iris as a means of getting to him. He didn’t like the precedent it set.

“What did you expect?” Snart had said afterwards, once all the fires had been put out. “She’s way more vulnerable than you are. It seemed like the simplest way to reach you. And I say that as someone who actually knows who you are, _Allen_.”

Now Barry says, “But we actually have a bigger problem, Iris.”

“Bigger than the Flash helping a known criminal?” she snaps back. “Because if that gets out…”

“Look, let me worry about that. I’m more worried about what your proximity to me means for your safety.”

“My proximity?” she repeats, brown eyes narrowing. “Oh, you mean as your _biographer_?”

Barry frowns at her, confused. “What?”

“Never mind,” she says shortly, and before he can inquire further, continues with, “And my safety was always going to be an issue, ever since I went public. I can handle it.”

“Iris, I don’t want criminals to think they can get to me through you.”

“Well, that’s not really up to you, is it?” she says. “You already got me the Fitbit and it worked just like it was supposed to. I’ll be more careful, I’ll get another lock put on the door if it makes you feel better, but short of going into hiding, I don’t see that there’s anything else to be done about it.”

Her tone makes clear that she believes the discussion is over and Barry knows a losing battle when he sees one. Clearly Snart had said something that set her off, but she doesn’t seem to want to share it with him and he doesn’t want to press her.

“Well, as long as you’re okay,” he says uncertainly.

“I’m _fine_ ,” she says.

“Okay. Good.”

She raises her brows at him, waiting for him to say more, but Barry’s been thrown by her uncharacteristic brusqueness. He says, “If there’s anything else I can do…”

“Are you going to tell me about your relationship with Snart and what he wanted tonight?”

“Iris…”

She shakes her head. “Then no, there’s nothing more I need from you tonight, Flash.”

*

Iris is well aware that Captain Cold had made reference to her being the Flash’s biographer simply to get under her skin. Part of her is irritated that it worked. It’s not like she ever wants to give Leonard Snart any sort of satisfaction, but she can’t help herself. She’s a reporter, for crying out loud, and the Flash is only one of the many metahumans she’s covered. That he’s the most famous is neither here nor there; it’s not like _Mason Bridge_ would have been called a biographer _or_ a fanboy of one of _his_ subjects.

“Totally,” Linda says. “It’s because he’s a man, and men are serious journalists covering serious topics while woman write human interest puff pieces.”

“Ugh,” Iris says. “It’s such a double standard.”

“You know, I’m sitting right here,” Mason says.

“Do you disagree?” Linda asks.

He thinks for a moment. “…I do not.”

“See.”

“But I also wouldn’t sit here whining about it—”

“ _Whining_?” Linda says, her voice dangerous.

“—When I could be out there doing actual reporting,” Mason says and holds up a hand when Linda inhales, presumably to start yelling. Iris sympathizes. “Yes, I know there’s a double standard and it sucks, blah blah blah, but Iris, you can either make yourself go crazy thinking about it or you can focus on doing your job.”

“Can’t I do both?” Iris asks. “Try and change the standard while doing my job?”

He shrugs. “If you like tilting at windmills.”

She and Linda share a look, in silent agreement with each other. It’s clear that while Mason is a talented reporter, he also can’t possibly understand what it’s like to be young, female, and trying to make a name for yourself. He’ll never know the completely aggravating frustration of having the best you do never be enough, or having your completely legitimate work undermined by people’s ridiculous assumptions based on your gender.

“Ugh, I’m done talking about this with you,” Linda says, waving at Mason, and turns to Iris. “You’ve had _two_ dangerous metahumans come after you. This is getting dangerous.”

“I don’t know if Captain Cold qualifies as a metahuman, technically,” Iris says and Linda glares at her. “Stop deflecting. He’s still dangerous.”

“She’s right,” Mason says mildly. “Scott should be informed about this.”

“No way,” Iris says. “I only told _you_ to get _her_ off my back.”

“You told me because you wanted my advice,” he counters. “And my advice is to tell Scott. Management should be aware of any threats to their staff, Iris. They won’t be able to help, otherwise.”

“I don’t need their help,” she says stubbornly.

“You don’t need their help until you do, or until it’s too late,” he returns. She’s about to point out that he’s being nonsensical when he adds, “I know you’re worried about being pulled from the metahuman beat, but you shouldn’t be. Your columns get eyeballs, Iris, and you’re building up an expertise in the…metahuman field, I guess you could say, which reflects well on CCPN. You’re an investment, one that so far has paid off. Scott’s not gonna want to end all that unless he has no other choice.”

Mason does make some sense, Iris thinks later. She’s so used to Joe’s knee-jerk overprotectiveness that it really hadn’t occurred to her how someone who isn’t her father but _is_ invested in Iris West, reporter, might see things. And to his credit, when she does tell Scott the next day, he says, “It’s up to you if you want to continue. I’d understand, of course, I’m not going to make you pursue something if you don’t feel safe.”

Iris shakes her head. “No, this is my beat. I want to keep working it.”

Scott inclines his head in acknowledgement. “Okay. We’re behind you, all the way. Just tell me if something changes, and West—I want you checking in with me before all your interviews from here on out.” He holds up a hand when she begins to speak. “You don’t need to tell me specifics. I’m not looking for you to compromise the anonymity you give your sources. I just need to know in case something happens.”

It’s a fair compromise, and after checking with Mason later, one that applies to him as well, which makes her feel better. She’d been a little taken aback by Mason’s description of her work as an “investment” for the paper, but she’s seen the internal numbers regarding the rates for the ads that appear on her columns, which are higher than all the rest of the sections except for Sports. People are interested in the metahumans in their midst, and Iris is the one consistently delivering the most in-depth coverage.

It’s just a matter of time before the city’s other outlets get the kinks in their own coverage ironed out and start giving her a run for her money on scoops and interview exclusives. But for now, she’s the go-to source and CCPN is reaping the benefits. Knowing that she’s so directly contributing to the health of the paper makes her proud, even while it slightly terrifies her. It’s not just her own reputation at stake anymore, and she’s determined not to let them down.

On the other hand, this _is_ the dream. Iris West is a reporter who covers things that matter, and she’s damn well not going to let anyone take that away from her.

*

Barry would be lying if he said he wasn’t bothered by the stilted conversation between him and Iris, after the incident with Snart. He hadn’t liked the way she’d seemed upset but wouldn’t talk to him about it, insisting she was fine. It’s selfish, he knows, but he’s come to rely on the way her belief in him buoys his own spirit. He’s not completely naive; he’s aware that his infatuation with her undoubtedly colors the way he perceives her. It’s not a mystery why thinking about her smile can brighten his entire mood. But it’s more than just physical. It’s the way she views him and his place in the world and the way he _likes_ himself more when he thinks about how she regards him. It’s the way he feels when he thinks about disappointing her, and how she inspires him to do better, _be_ better, even when she’s not actually around.

So the idea that Iris might be upset with him is not something he wants to let fester. She brushes off several of his texts suggesting that they meet up with a curt _Maybe later, I have a deadline_. Normally, Barry would absolutely respect her time, but after three days of this, he finally writes, _Jitters tonight, we need to talk_.

“What’s up?” she says when she comes out onto the roof. “I’m sorry, I don’t have anything right at the moment for you.”

“It’s fine,” he says, waving her off. “I don’t have anything for you either.”

Iris frowns. “Then what—”

“Are you mad at me?”

“What?”

“Are you mad at me?” he repeats. “Because it feels an awful lot like you are and I’d like to know what I did, so I can apologize for it.”

“Oh,” she says, looking disconcerted. “No, I…you haven’t done anything wrong. I’m not mad at you.”

“Then what is it, Iris? I know you’re upset about something. Did Snart say something to you?”

Iris opens her mouth to reply and then seems to think better of it, sighing. She walks over to the edge of the building, leaning on the ledge and looking out over the city. When she finally speaks, her voice is chagrined. “He did say something. It was stupid, I _know_ he was needling me, and I still let it get to me.” She turns to face him, her expression wry. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“What did he say to you?” He’s relieved when his voice comes out even. If that jackass said something awful to Iris, Barry is going to run him to the _Yukon_ and leave him there.

“It’s really not a big deal…” she begins but he cuts her off with a simple “ _Iris_.” She frowns a little at his tone but says reluctantly, “He called me your biographer.”

Barry waits for a moment but she doesn’t elaborate. “I don’t…my _biographer_?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Like that was all I was, just a fangirl with a—with a crush and a blog or whatever.”

“Oh,” Barry says. He shoves away any thought of _Iris_ and _crush_ existing in the same sentence, recognizing that this would be missing the point. “Well, that’s stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You’ve covered tons of metas other than me—your piece on Plastique alone was way more in-depth than anything you’ve ever done on me.”

“I _know_ that,” she says, “I _know_ that Snart was trying to get to me, and it was dumb to get upset about it, but…”

“Look, Captain Cold is an asshole who is really, really good at finding that one thing that sticks in your brain. Trust me, I know. But Iris, no one who actually reads your work thinks of you in that way. Central City should be thanking you for everything you’ve done in reporting what’s going on here. And look,” he adds, grinning at her, “if you really were just a fangirl, you’d never have reported on King Shark kicking my ass last month. Thank you _very_ much for that, by the way.”

He can see that she’s reluctantly amused. “I don’t think I said _directly_ that he kicked your ass.”

“You told all your readers that he threw me in a dumpster. The ass-kicking was inferred.”

She shrugs, smiling openly now. “Hey, I’m just reporting the facts, and besides you ended up taking him down anyways. Maybe next time you should avoid being tossed in the trash in the process.”

“Actually, I’d much rather land in a dumpster than on the cement,” Barry muses. “It’s much softer.”

“And smellier. That reminds me: is your suit dry-clean only? I imagine the scent of rotten eggs doesn’t just wash out in one go.”

“Oh my god, it was awful,” he replies, thinking back and shuddering theatrically. Cisco hadn’t spoken to him for _days_. She laughs and his heart lifts. “Hey, are we good?” he asks. She nods, raising her hand, and they fist bump gently. “Good. Need a ride home?”

“Oh,” she says, looking startled. “Sure?”

“Hop on,” he says and scoops her up.

The next morning, Iris sends him a text: _Thanks for the pep talk last night, it really helped. If you ever need a second career, you should consider motivational speaking._

 _Nah, I’d be terrible at that,_ he texts back, feeling reckless. _Last night was only easy because I was talking about you._

_I can’t decide if that is incredibly sweet or incredibly corny._

_It can’t be both?_

_BREAKING NEWS: THE FLASH IS A HUGE CHEESEBALL._

_You’ve discovered my secret!!_ he responds and laughs when she sends a photo of herself mid eye-roll.

That afternoon, Barry blows his own speed record while stopping a commuter train from derailing.

“Jeez, what’ve you been eating these days, Barry?” Cisco asks when he arrives back at STAR Labs, barely even winded.

Barry shrugs. “I've just been feeling good lately, I guess.”

*

“So Dad apparently asked the Captain if he could be on the metahuman task force,” Iris says. It’s Sunday and she’s in the kitchen of her childhood home making brownies. Wally’s there, “helping,” which really consists of eating as much batter as he can snitch from the bowl without her catching him.

“Really?” he asks, leveraging himself up on the counter after she smacks his hands for the tenth time. “When did this happen?”

“A while ago.”

“And you’re just telling me now?”

“I’ve barely seen you, dumbass,” she says, exasperated. “And this isn’t the sort of thing I wanted to discuss over text.”

“I’ve been busy,” Wally protests, “we had this crazy project the last couple weeks, and then there were midterms, and then—”

“All the post-midterm parties…” Iris interjects. “Yeah, it must be _so_ hard.”

“It is hard! Besides, you went MIA there for a while yourself,” he says. “At least _I’m_ not the one who spent all that time skulking around meeting metahumans in back alleyways and writing a secret blog.”

“I don’t _skulk_ ,” Iris says indignantly. Wally waves this off. “Anyways. So Dad wanted on the task force.” He frowns, thinking. “I guess that’s not very surprising.”

“Singh said he couldn’t be on it,” Iris says, spooning the batter into a tin. “Conflict of interest because of me.”

“Makes sense, you’re the only reason he wanted it in the first place.”

“Should I talk to him?” She sticks the tin in the oven and sets the timer before turning back to her brother.

“I mean, what is there to say?” Wally shrugs. “You’re an adult, it’s not like he can forbid you from writing about whatever you want, and the paper’s behind you already.”

“I don’t know, I knew he was upset about it, but actively trying to police the metahumans just because I’m out there reporting on them seems sort of…” She trails off uncertainly.

“Obviously he wants to learn more about this thing that you’re investigating,” Wally says reasonably. “He’s police. This is the way he interacts with the world. By policing.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Iris says, taking the dirty bowl and spoons over to the sink. Wally lurches sideways towards her, grabbing the mixing spoon out of the bowl before she can run the water. He gives it a satisfied lick. “Maybe if you talk to him a little bit more about what’s going on, about your investigations, it would relieve his mind a little bit. You don’t have to tell him _everything_ ,” he adds when she opens her mouth to protest. “Nothing that’s, like, confidential or whatever. But enough so he doesn’t feel like he’s been left out of the cold, you know?”

“Hmm. You may have a point.” She hands Wally the now clean bowl and a towel and he begins drying it absently.

“So have you figured out who the Flash is?”

“What?”

“Come on, Iris, I know you’ve met with him a couple times. Don’t tell me you have zero ideas.”

“I’m actively trying to _not_ have any ideas,” she says.

He looks at her quizzically. “Why not? Isn’t that your job?”

She sighs. “It’s…complicated.” Before she can expand, the back door opens and their father walks in.

“Hey, Iris. Wally, get your butt off the counter.” Joe gives her a kiss as Wally jumps down, grinning. “I smell brownies.”

“They’re for dessert tonight,” Iris says. “I also brought a salad.”

“You know, one healthy thing doesn’t cancel out the other not-healthy thing, Iris,” Wally says, and she shoots back, “Fine then, no brownies for you.”

Joe laughs. “You didn’t think that one through, son.”

“Dammit,” says Wally.

Dinner is the usual three way conversation, as Joe recounts anecdotes from work, Wally bitches about the latest impossible assignments given in his classes, and Iris amuses them with the latest dustup from the copyeditors. She’s aware of her father listening closely as she talks obliquely about the stories she’s working on. She doesn’t go into specifics, and he doesn’t press her, but Wally raises a brow and she thinks her brother could have a point. It’s just that she’s used to being circumspect about her work; when she was writing about the blog in secret, she’d obviously never brought the subject up and it’s hard to break the habit, especially with her father. And now that there has been two incidents demonstrably proving that her articles make her a target, she’s even less certain that telling Joe will lead to anything good.

“Iris, do you need me to pick you up on Thursday?” Joe asks at the end of the meal, sobering. “We can all go together.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Wally look down, his face shuttering.

“Yeah, Dad,” she says quietly. “That would be nice.”

*

Barry’s working late in his lab on Thursday night, trying to catch up on a backlog of police work. He knows that if he doesn’t keep on top of his work he’s about two yells away from Singh just losing his temper entirely and flat-out firing him. He doesn’t mind the work; it’s interesting enough to keep his attention and just mundane enough to allow him to relax in a way that he normally can’t with anything metahuman related.

His phone chimes, drawing his attention away from his microscope. Barry can’t help the smile that crosses his face when he sees who the text is from.

_Hey Flash, how are things? You in the middle of any top-secret superheroing?_

_Nothing urgent_ , he replies. _How about you? It’s been a few days._

_Tracking down a few things, but I need to firm up some details before I send to you._

_Ah. Well let me know if I can help._

_Will do_ , she sends back. _Nothing I can’t handle for now._

He frowns, glancing outside. It had been raining earlier and the sky was still overcast as the sun set; now, there is no moon to cut through the night. If Iris was following a lead somewhere away from the city lights, she’d be alone in the dark. _Are you workingnow? Sure you don’t need backup?_

 _Oh, not right now,_ she texts back. _Actually down on Pub Street waiting for an Uber. It’s taking forever and I’m bored. Thursday night and all the college kids are going out, you know how it is._

Barry doesn’t allow himself any time to stop and think about what he’s doing. Moments later, he sweeps her up in his arms and flashes back to her apartment, depositing her on the balcony. She teeters backwards and he catches her, steadying her gently.

“Wha—whoah, Flash,” she says, gaping. Light from the surrounding buildings plays over her astonished face. “I—um—you might want to warn a girl before you do something like that in the future.”

“Sorry,” he says, grinning at her. “But it seemed like you needed a lift.”

Iris shakes her head. “Hey, I’m not complaining. Thanks for that. Uber’s surge pricing was out of control.”

He glances down. She’s dressed more conservatively than he’s seen before, in a tan trench coat and demure navy dress that still manages to look incredible on her. It’s not, however, the type of outfit usually worn to Pub Street, with its assortment of clubs and bars, but he’s not about to say that outright. “Like you said, Pub Street on a Thursday night.”

“Not my idea, believe me,” she says. “Drinking with rowdy college kids is not my usual Thursday. My brother made me get a drink with him.”

“Ah,” he says and falls silent as Iris digs her keys out of her purse and opens the door. He steps backwards, preparing to flash down the building after she goes inside. Instead, she turns back to him, her face pensive.

“Do you…is there anywhere you need to be?” she asks. Her voice is muted.

“No,” Barry says. “Is there something wrong?”

She doesn’t answer immediately, saying instead, “Would you mind just…staying here, with me? Just for a minute?”

“Of course,” he says instantly, reaching out with one gloved hand to touch her shoulder. He can see the brief flash of her smile at the contact and then she leans her forearms against the railing, looking out at the city.

“Today’s always a shitty day,” she says after a moment, still staring forward. Barry moves gingerly to stand next to her, not quite touching but close enough to offer comfort, if she needs it. “I guess I just don’t want to be alone.”

Barry glances sideways at Iris. Her profile is composed but he can see the tension in her shoulders and the way she holds herself. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She doesn’t turn to meet his gaze. “I’m not sure if you know this, but…my dad’s a cop. A detective. He’s been on the force for my entire life, out there every day facing down danger. I mean, he’s as careful as you can be in that job, but you know, shit happens. A couple years ago, his partner was killed in the line of duty, some freak accident in a storm.” Iris sighs, running a hand over the metal balustrade. “My point is, I’d always sort of braced myself for that phone call, you know? The one telling me that something had happened to my dad, that he wasn’t going to come home.” She pauses again and Barry frowns. He knows very well that nothing has happened to Joe West.

“Wally—my brother—he says he had the same fear for our dad. But neither of us thought to worry about our mom.”

At this, Barry’s breath hitches painfully in his chest. He finds he couldn’t look at her even if he wanted to.

“Cancer,” Iris says, her voice scraping on the word. “They caught it too late. At least—” and here her voice breaks, achingly, “At least she wasn’t sick for very long before…before it was over.”

Barry knows now why today is a shitty one for Iris West. He thinks he can guess why her brother dragged her out to Pub Street, with its free-flowing alcohol and all its attendant distractions. He says, keeping his voice as gentle as he can make it, “I’m so sorry, Iris. It’s…it’s not easy, losing a parent.”

“It’s been five years,” Iris says. “I’m starting to forget things, like the exact sound of her laugh, or the way her hand felt when she held mine. I’m so afraid that the more time goes by, the more I’ll lose. It sounds stupid, they’re just little things, I know, but—”

“No,” Barry says vehemently, turning and taking her by the shoulders. “No, it’s not stupid at all. Those little things, they make up the person you knew, they’re part of what made up your mother. You’re not stupid to be afraid of that.”

Iris stares up at him, eyes wide, and his heart breaks a little because he _knows_ how she feels, he knows what it’s like to lose bits and pieces of your memory of a person. How terrifying it is to realize that it will likely only get worse and that there’s no possible way to stop it. Memory is fallible, the march of time inexorable, and there’s no such thing as permanence. It’s one of the tragedies of growing up and realizing what mortality truly means.

“I know how you feel, Iris,” he says, holding her gaze. “And I’m not just saying that. _I know._ ” He watches as understanding blooms in her eyes.

“How do you cope?” she asks softly.

“Some days, I don’t,” he replies honestly and she nods. Barry throws caution to the wind and pulls Iris in close, wrapping his arms around her, and feels her own arms circling around his waist.“It isn’t fair,” she says eventually, voice slightly muffled by his shoulder. “She’s my mother and I’m _losing_ her.”

He thinks for a moment, then says quietly, “Tell me about her.”

“Oh,” Iris says, her voice soft. She pulls away a little and says, “She was… She was calm, and kind, and she had this really quiet sense of humor, like, you didn’t always immediately know when she was making a joke. She worked really hard, and expected me and Wally to do the same, even though we didn’t…we didn’t grow up in the same kind of circumstances that she did. Disappointing her was the worst feeling in the world. She was this fantastic baker, you should have smelled our house in the winter, it always smelled so good…”

As Iris speaks, Barry can see her calm down and become more centered; her breathing steadies. It’s strange; normally when people talk about their mothers, he’s threatened with an overwhelming sense of loss at what he’d missed out on in his own life. But listening to Iris in the darkness, all he feels is a strange sort of gratitude. He’s glad, he realizes, for the time that she did have with her mother, for the role her mother got to play in shaping the Iris that Barry gets to know today.

She draws to a close, breathing out. Then she turns to face him. “Thank you. That…it was…it was good, to speak of her.”

In the faint light, Barry can see the remnants of tear tracks down her cheek and he shifts, pulling off one of his gloves and rubbing the wetness away. It’s the first time he’s touched her with his bare hands and his thumb lingers on her smooth skin, fingers sliding against her jawbone to cup her face. The moment stretches out, potent and heavy, and everything else falls away, as though the universe has gone quiet, waiting for something to happen.

Iris peers up at him for a brief moment more, standing lightly in his arms. Then she rises up on her toes, towards him, and Barry feels a split second of amazement before her lips are on his and she’s kissing him.

*


	5. Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to @kepp0xy for the speedy beta.

After she kisses him, there had been an agonizing second where Iris had been afraid that she’d _completely_ misread the moment. Just when she’s about to pull back, utterly mortified, the Flash’s arms tighten around her, pulling her into his body. His mouth opens under her own and he kisses her back, his glove-free hand sliding up into her hair to cup her head. He holds her there, gently, as he finds a better angle to the kiss, his tongue slipping into her mouth to stroke and slide against her own. Iris can’t help the soft noise she makes as her stomach swoops. She can feel him react: his kiss becomes more urgent, less controlled, and his lower hand drifts down from her waist to pull her more firmly against him.

She yanks him with her as she shuffles backwards through the balcony door and into her dark apartment. They break apart, stumbling, when his shoulder catches on the doorframe and she giggles as he flails out before regaining his balance. “Iris…” he begins, but she shushes him, pushing him down on the couch and climbing into his lap while simultaneously shrugging her coat off and throwing it unceremoniously on the floor. Fortunately her dress is not tight and rucks easily up her thighs as she straddles him. “Iris,” he says again, “are you…?” but his hands are already sliding up her bare legs, fingers trailing fire against her skin. “Shut up and kiss me,” she says breathlessly, leaning down to him. To her relief, he does.

She’s not sure who moves first to take off his cowl. They hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights and the room is too dark for her to make out any of his features. As soon as it’s pushed back, she immediately runs her hands through his hair, nails scraping against his scalp, and he lets out a groan before kissing her again. It’s better without the cowl; he has more freedom of movement and she’s not rubbing up against whatever the hell material it’s made out of. She traces over his brow and the ridge of his nose, memorizing the shape of his face in the dark. He catches her hand, placing an open-mouthed kiss on her palm, tongue flicking hotly against skin, before pulling her back in for another drugging kiss.

By now her dress has been totally pushed up around her hips, but he hasn’t made any move south, so to speak. Iris is hyperaware of the bulge in his pants and thinks, distantly, that it can’t be comfortable. His suit doesn’t look like it has any give to it at all. She’s trying to be careful, doesn’t want to cause him any more discomfort, but then one of his hands brushes oh-so-gently against the cloth covering her nipple and she jerks against him, her nerve endings coming alive. The movement brings her breast more fully into his hand, which was the whole point, but it it also slides her firmly against his erection. He lets out a choked gasp. She rolls her hips again, experimentally, and they both shudder. He says, his voice strangled, “That’s not a good idea, Iris.”

Before she can tell him that she thinks it’s a _great_ idea, he shifts a little, sliding one hand around to cup her ass over her underwear and hold her hips steady. The other hand tangles in her hair again, tugging her forward so he can kiss his way down her neck towards her cleavage.

Unfortunately the dress is far too modestly cut for the direction he’s obviously heading. Iris squirms a little in his lap, trying to reach her zipper, and his fingers tighten on her hip. “Wait, I can’t… _Iris_ …” he mumbles, thrusting up against her, and her mouth falls open involuntarily at the exquisite friction between them, the bulge in his pants rubbing deliciously against her. They are wearing entirely too many clothes. She exhales shakily, the throbbing between her legs intensifying, and says, “My zipper…”

“Hmm?” He’s settled for mouthing back up her neck towards her jaw, his hips thrusting up again.

“Zip— _oh god_ —zipper…” His hands are now running all over her body, shaping over her breasts and her ass as he grinds up into her, and she hopes vaguely that he might have understood what she was trying to say. There’s some sort of noise that sounds strange to her but she’s too focused on chasing the mindless pleasure that threatens to swamp her with each of his movements. 

The jolt, when it comes, is enough to jar them loose of each other. Iris ends up tumbling off the couch, landing with an undignified squeak on the floor. The Flash, for all his quick reflexes, is thrown against the back of the couch, and then he’s swearing, kneeling beside her.

“Oh my god, Iris, are you okay?”

“What the _fuck_?” She’s disoriented, the high of her arousal quickly plummeting into irritation. “What was that?”

“My suit, I think,” the Flash says, pulling his cowl back over his head. “Guys, what the _hell_?!” He listens for a moment and Iris wishes vehemently for lights so she could see—well, the bottom part of his face. _Oh Christ, I nearly fucked the Flash_ , she thinks and has to push it away for the time being. Then he says softly, “Shit, okay, thanks.”

The Flash stands, offering her a hand. She takes it and he pulls her up easily. “I am so, so sorry, but I have to go right now.”

“Are you _joking_ —”

“I promise I’ll explain later,” he says. “I’m so sorry, Iris, I really…” and just like that, he’s gone.

*

Barry shouldn’t have been surprised that the man in yellow is faster than he is. They’re racing through the city, and even though Barry’s sure he’s going faster than he’s ever run before, the other man remains just a few maddening steps in front of him.

Caitlin’s voice sounds in his earpiece. “Barry, if you keep going at this pace you’re going to wear yourself out.”

“I’m fine,” he pants. “I can catch him.”

“What if you break off,” Cisco suggests, “see if he’ll follow you?”

“Don’t wanna lose him.”

“Where is Dr. Wells?” Caitlin mutters. “We need him.”

“Well, we gotta do our best without him,” Cisco replies, but Barry’s not really listening, concentrating on narrowing the gap between him and his mother’s killer. Buildings have blurred together as they go streaking by, and the cars on the street all seem like they’ve come to a standstill, relative to Barry’s own speed. They pass through Central City in no time at all and then they’re on the open highway, running flat out. It’s easier here; no need to worry about any impediments in the road save the occasional long-haul trucker or driver making an all-night run. Barry lasers in on the man’s back and keeps on going.

He has no idea how long it’s been when the man in yellow suddenly wheels around, grabbing Barry’s arm as he runs haplessly past and using his forward momentum to throw him into a cornfield. Barry lands painfully in a jumble of limbs, bouncing and rolling a good thirty yards before finally coming to a stop.

“…broken ribs, he might have a concussion, Barry, can you hear me?” Caitlin’s voice is painfully loud in his ear and he winces. Before he can reply, a crack of red light briefly illuminates the darkness, revealing the the man in yellow standing in front of him.

“Barry Allen. It’s good to finally meet you. Or should I say, meet you again? It’s been a while, after all.” The man is clearly using vibration to hide his true voice; his face is blurred. Despite this, he sounds barely even winded. Barry feels a black wave of rage rising up inside him and tries to surge to his feet. Pain explodes in his chest and his left knee and he collapses back on the ground, furious.

“You—you—” he gasps and the man laughs. “Who _are_ you? What do you want?”

“I want a lot of things,” the man replies.

“Why did you do it? Why did you kill my mother?”

“Because I could,” says the man. “And because it needed to be done.”

“She didn’t—she didn’t do anything to you,” Barry cries out, “how could you—she was innocent and you _killed_ her right in front of me.”

“She gave birth to _you_ ,” the man says and Barry’s blood runs cold. For the first time, the menace in the man’s voice penetrates Barry’s own anger, bringing with it the first seeds of fear. “Believe me, that was more than enough.”

“What are you talking about? What do I have to do with anything?”

“You loved her, so she had to die. It’s that simple.”

“I don’t understand,” Barry says, bewildered. He’d thought he’d understood anger; he knew his own reasons for hating the man before him, but he’s shocked by the intensity being thrown back at him, especially since he can’t think what he might have done, what his _mother_ might have done, to deserve it. “Why do you hate me so much? I don’t even _know_ you.”

“Exactly,” says the man, his voice like ice, and with another crack of red lighting, vanishes.

*

It honestly doesn’t occur to Iris that the Flash might not return to her apartment as soon as he’d finished with whatever it was that had called him away. After all, he’d had his tongue in her mouth and his hands all over her body and his dick—well, _not_ where she’d wanted it at the time, but his dick had definitely been involved. It would just be polite, if nothing else, to give her some sort of explanation for what had happened.

After changing into pajamas, she settles onto the couch to wait up for him. She can’t help but relieve in minute detail the way that he had felt and sounded, moving under her. It’s ridiculous how turned on she was, how turned on she can make herself become again, just thinking about it. At the same time, however, she’s aware that she’s— _they’ve_ —crossed a line, one that she’s not sure they can ever recross. She’s not sure she _wants_ to go back, frankly.

There’s a creeping sense of unreality to the entire situation—she’d been more than ready to sleep with the Flash, who is an _actual superhero_ , and she’s never even seen his face. She doesn’t even know his _name_. But she knows him in all the ways that matter, she knows the type of person that he is. Surely that’s more meaningful than being able to pick his name out of a phone book.

And he’d wanted her, too. She thinks about the way he’d kissed her, the way his voice had cracked on her name. She doesn’t know what it all means exactly, but, well, that’s why they should probably talk.

The final time she checks her phone, it’s nearly three in the morning. When she she wakes up the next morning, confused and with a crick in her neck, she realizes, stomach sinking, that he hadn’t come and hadn’t even bothered to text or email her, either.

Social media tells her that red and yellow flashes had been spotted running through the city the night before, but there’d been no other indication of a violent fight or anything like that. She recalls the Flash asking her, weeks ago, to be on the lookout for another speedster, a yellow one, and wonders if this was the meta he’d wanted to find. She debates sending a text inquiring whether or not he was okay, but after glancing at the couch and flushing, decides to wait a bit.

She gets dressed and goes to work because she’s a grownup. Grownups don’t get to hide in bed even when they very nearly have sex with their superhero crushes who then don’t call them after. Iris has never been the type of girl who has one-night-stands; she’s always needed to feel some kind of intimacy with a person before she’s comfortable enough to get naked. So she has no experience dealing with the awkward uncertainty that happens when a guy ghosts. Hell, she’s not sure if the Flash is even ghosting her to begin with. Maybe he was hurt after his run-in with the yellow speedster. Maybe he’s lying unconscious in a hospital somewhere. Or maybe she’s just overthinking everything and needs to chill the hell out.

“We’re going out to lunch,” Linda says. Iris blinks at her in surprise. She hadn’t even heard Linda approach. “Grab your stuff, let’s go.”

“But…”

“Nope. No buts. Come on.”

Wordlessly Iris gathers her things and follows Linda out the door.

“Okay, what the hell’s up with you today?” Linda asks once they’re seated at a nearby restaurant. “I know it’s Friday, but even that’s not enough to account for why you’re making a play for zombie employee of the year.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Iris makes a show of perusing her menu. “I’m just tired, is all. Didn’t get a lot of sleep.”

Linda raises a brow. “Really. You’re just tired.”

“Yes. You know—what yesterday was.” Any reporter worth her salt knows when and how to be unscrupulous but Iris feels a flash of guilt at using the anniversary of her mother’s death so cavalierly as a way to get Linda off her back. Her guilt’s compounded when Linda blanches. “Oh, Iris, I’m—I’m sorry. Of course you’re—look, forget I said anything.”

“No, I…you’re right. I _have_ been distracted all morning.” She hesitates, biting her lip, but it occurs to her suddenly that Linda might be able to give her some much-needed perspective, even though she’s never met the Flash. “Something happened last night. With the Flash.” Linda raises a brow, waiting. Iris feels heat rising in her cheeks and wishes for the briefest of moments that she was the type of girl who could make out with strangers and not care, who could casually describe her sexual conquests without feeling totally mortified. “We, um…we kind of hooked up.”

Across the table, Linda blinks at her. “You…and the Flash. The superhero who runs around the city saving people. In a mask. Whose identity no one knows.” Linda blinks again. “Wait, _do_ you know his identity?”

“Uh…no,” Iris replies, cheeks still flaming.

“So, how did it happen?” Linda props her elbow up on the table, chin in hand, her expression avid. “Was it…good? Was he—he must have still been in his suit, right? What did it feel like? What did _he_ feel like, for that matter?”

“It was…good—no, really,” she says in reply to Linda’s quirked brow. “I mean, at the beginning it was kind of unreal, like, what the hell, I’m making out with the Flash, you know? But at the same time—I’m sure it won’t shock you to hear that I’ve…had a crush on him for a while,” and here Linda nods wryly, “but it was totally disconcerting to realize that—he seemed to want me too? Like, isn’t that weird? He’s a superhero and I’m just some reporter.”

Linda opens her mouth to protest and Iris shakes her head, plowing on. “I’m not just saying that for your pity, or whatever, I mean it is literally true. But when it happened, it seemed like he’d been thinking about me, as well, and it just felt…right. Like this was supposed to happen, like it was inevitable.”

“Like destiny,” Linda says, and Iris nods. “Yeah. But then…he got a call. Some meta he’s been looking for, and he had to go, right in the middle of…of things.”

“Awkward.”

Iris snorts. “No shit. And now…it’s been half a day, and he hasn’t contacted me. Not even a text.”

Linda’s eyes grow wide. “Whaaat?”

“I know.” Iris sighs miserably. “And now I don’t know what to do. Am I—am I getting blown off? Does he regret it? Or maybe—maybe something happened to him last night, and he’s like, lying in a ditch somewhere and I have _no idea_.”

“Okay, calm down,” Linda says reassuringly. “First of all, I assume you’ve been checking your sources, and you haven’t heard anything about the Flash being injured, right?”

Iris nods.

“Well, then stick a pin in that for the time being. There’s no reason for you to go crazy over something that might not have even happened in the first place. Second, it _has_ only been half a day. The Flash may be a superhero, but he’s also a dude, and dudes can be idiots when it comes to this stuff.”

“It just doesn’t seem like him, though,” Iris protests.

Linda shrugs. “It sounds like you guys ventured into new territory last night. Maybe he just needs a little time to process what happened.”

“Oh, god,” Iris says, slouching down into her seat. “I never should have kissed him.”

Linda raises a brow approvingly. “ _You_ kissed _him_? Way to go, Iris. Take what you want.”

“But what if he doesn’t want me _back_?”

“You _just_ said it seemed like he wanted you. Like he’d been thinking about you, too.”

“But that was in the moment. What if he thought about it and totally regrets everything?”

“Then it’s his loss.”

“But—”

“Iris Ann West,” Linda says sternly. “Stop with this nonsense immediately. You are accomplished and beautiful and a great catch and anyone would be lucky to have you, and if the Flash can’t see that, then superhero or not, he’s the idiot.”

“It would just be so embarrassing,” Iris says quietly, “if he didn’t. He’s one of the biggest stories in the metahuman world, and it’s my beat.”

“Look,” Linda replies, “I’m not going to pretend that it wouldn’t be difficult, if he really does regret hooking up with you. But like I said, give him time to contact you. It might be nothing. Don’t freak out until you know what’s happening. Have you tried texting _him_?”

“…No,” Iris says. “I thought…he was the one who took off last night, so I thought…”

“You were embarrassed,” Linda finishes, “I get it. But need I remind you, you’re Iris West. You investigate metas and chase down bad guys. You’re fearless in the pursuit of truth. Don’t let any dude, even if he’s the Flash, cow you into waiting around for him to call.”

“You’re right,” Iris says, after a moment’s consideration.

“I’m _always_ right,” Linda replies, and grins at the eye roll Iris sends her way.

*

 _You loved her, so she had to die_. The words seem to echo in Barry’s brain. He’s sitting in his lab in the precinct, mechanically running tests and thinking furiously. After the man in yellow had vanished, he’d scraped himself off the ground and limped back to STAR Labs, where Caitlin had wrapped his ribs and Cisco and Wells, newly arrived, fired questions at him about the man’s suit, his speed, anything Barry could remember. Finally, after his body has finished healing itself and the rest of Team Flash seem to have exhausted their questions, Barry had pushed off the bed in the med bay and said shortly, “I have to go,” leaving them staring after him. He feels restless and edgy; he doesn’t want to see the worried looks on all three of their faces, or the pity.

It had been nearing dawn, light just beginning to brush the edges of the sky with warmth. Barry had thought for a moment about going home but knew he won’t be able to sleep. His mind is too full to bursting to even consider it. He’d headed into his office instead, deciding that running mindless tests might help distract him. He wasn’t fast enough to catch the man in yellow, not even close. And he is terrified that he won’t be fast enough to protect the people closest to him now. His utter helplessness in the face of the man’s implacable speed threatens to swamp him in despair.

The morning passes by in a blur of lab readouts and test-tube samples. He downs coffee mechanically; Singh yells at him about something; several detectives send him inquires that he answers by rote. Luckily nothing catastrophic happens, allowing Barry to remain hidden away in his lab, where nothing pressing can touch him.

Some time later, his phone buzzes, shaking him out of his reverie. Barry’s heart sinks when he sees who it’s from. _Hi Flash, just wanted to make sure everything is okay?_

He should go see her. He owes her an explanation for his abrupt disappearance the night before, especially in light of what they had been in the middle of. He can still feel the shape of her underneath his hands, can recall, precisely, how she fit in his arms. Even in his dreams—and there’d been plenty of those—he’d never thought to imagine how well they fit together.

Barry sighs, running his hands through his hair before picking up his phone. _I’m fine. I’m sorry about last night. Can you meet tonight?_

 _Yes_ , she replies. _Jitters rooftop?_

_I’ll see you there._

She’s waiting for him when he arrives that evening, leaning against the wall. Her smile comes tentatively when she sees him and there’s a furrow between her brows. He wants to smooth away that line with his thumb, wants to feel the weight of her against him. He stops a good distance away instead and his heart aches when the furrow deepens into a frown.

“Flash…” she says slowly. “Are you sure you’re all right? There were reports of two streaks running through the city last night, a red streak and a yellow streak. Is that the man you were asking me about? You found him?”

“Yes,” he replies. “I found him.” When he doesn’t say anything further, she says, “Oh,” and looks around uncertainly. “Um. Well…”

Her voice trails off and Barry hates the way he feels right now, hates the conflicting emotions running through him. “Look, Iris,” he says as gently as he can manage, “about last night…”

She crosses her arms, hunching in on herself, and it takes everything in him to resist going to her. “You don’t have to say anything,” she says. “I didn’t—I kissed you. You didn’t ask for anything to happen.”

He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s not that. You’re…vulnerable. Everyone knows that you’ve worked with me before, that we’ve met.”

“…So?” Her voice is guarded.

“So I don’t want to put you in any more danger than you’re already in.”

“Flash, I thought we’d gone over this. It isn’t your decision. This is my beat, and I know the risks.”

“No,” Barry says, “you don’t. Not really.”

She takes a quick breath and opens her mouth to retort but something makes her pause. She studies him in the twilight, her eyes sharp and steady on him. “What happened last night, Flash?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Barry replies. “Isn’t it enough that you’ve already been kidnapped by a meta? That your home has already been broken into?”

“Darren had nothing to do with you,” Iris says. “That was on me. And we both know Snart was never going to hurt me; it’s not his style. So I’ll ask again: what happened last night? Who is the yellow streak? Who is he to you?”

“Snart might not have hurt you,” Barry returns, “but he still used you to get to me.”

“And you think this other streak will do the same,” she says slowly. It’s not a question.

 _You loved her, so she had to die._ “I think…I think I don’t want to take that risk.”

“It’s not your risk to take, Flash. And besides, like you said, everyone knows that I’ve worked with you before. That ship has sailed.”

Barry’s unsurprised to hear the thread of anger running through her voice; he _is_ surprised by the answering anger he feels. “Iris, this isn’t something you can just blow off. He’s dangerous, he could _hurt_ you.”

“For the last time,” Iris bites out, “ _I know_. Stop treating me like some sort of helpless little girl who doesn’t understand the danger.”

“You don’t know what he’s capable of,” Barry shoots back.

“Then fucking _tell me_ ,” she snaps. “What did he do to you? Who did he hurt?”

“The more I tell you, the more danger you’re in,” he says. “I know this isn’t fair, but I’m doing this for your own good, I swear.”

“ _My own good_ ,” she repeats, her voice gone tight. “Since when were you my father? Since when did you have a say in what I do?”

“Since I could be the reason you get hurt,” Barry says, trying to make her understand. “I couldn’t live with myself if anything happens to you, Iris, you’re too—you’re too important to me.” He thinks that maybe this admission will help, will show her that he _can’t_ afford to lose her. All of a sudden, the lack of sleep rushes upon him, filling his veins with sand. He feels desperation crawling over his skin; he wants more than anything to make her understand, but he's terrified that telling her more will lead her into more danger. She'll want to help him; it's what she does.

“I have told you _from the beginning_ that I can take care of myself,” she says, her voice shaking. “I have known, _from the beginning,_ what the risks are. You take risks every day as the Flash. And I know,” she continues, forestalling him, “ _I know_ that I’m not a metahuman. I don’t have special powers, I don’t have superhuman healing. But it is my choice to be here. And no one, not even you, Flash, gets to take that away from me.”

He huffs out a breath, frustrated beyond measure. _You loved her, you loved her, you loved her_ beats like a drum in his mind, heightening his sense of panic. He _has_ to get through to her, he has to keep her safe. “I’m not trying to take anything away from you, Iris. But don’t you understand what could happen—if he were to threaten you, if he were to do _anything_ to you—I don’t know what I’d do. What I’d _agree_ to do, to ensure your safety.”

She stares at him, her mouth a flat line. “So I’m supposed to—what? Hide away? Stay in my house? Not do my job? I don’t understand what you expect me to do, Flash.”

“I don’t—I don’t know, Iris,” he says wretchedly. “I know this is an impossible situation for you, but I know I can’t do _my_ job if there’s a chance that you could be hurt.”

He falls silent. Beyond the Jitters rooftop, the city pulses with life, millions of ordinary people going about their night as usual. The atmosphere on the rooftop feels soupy with tension. Iris squares her shoulders and says quietly, “I’m not going to stop. I’ll be as careful as I know how to be. I promise I will call you at the first sign of danger, and I won’t take any unnecessary risks. I’m sorry, but that’s the best I can do.” She walks forward, stopping an arms-length away. Barry closes his eyes when she reaches out and cups his jaw over his mask. “This was never just your story, Flash. It’s mine, too. I’m not going to sit by and let it go on without me.”

He leans into her touch. Part of him can’t understand how the situation got so beyond his control, even while he has to admit that he’d expect nothing less from Iris West. Her tenacity has always been something he’s admired about her.

She drops her hand and turns to go. Before she reaches the door, he says, “Iris. Just so you know. The only thing I regret about last night is leaving you.”

She pauses for a moment, her fingers grasping the handle. Then she pulls it open and steps through. She doesn’t turn around. The door closes behind her with a click, the finality of it echoing into the night and exhaustion presses down on his shoulders like a collar made of iron. Barry stares at the space Iris has vacated, his heart beating hollowly in his chest. His stomach feels queasy, even though he hasn’t eaten much all day. If he’d had any idea that falling in love felt so much like getting the stomach flu, he might have tried harder to avoid it, although a part of him knows that it had been inevitable, from their first meeting on this very rooftop. He’s in love with Iris West, and for her own sake, he can never tell her.

“Fuck,” he says softly, into the darkness. The darkness doesn’t answer back.

*

 


	6. Part Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to @valeriemperez for allowing me to babble at her! Again, I'm sorry for the delay in posting; holidays, y'all.

Iris isn’t particularly proud of the fact that she stays in all weekend, but sometimes a girl’s gotta wallow. She answers texts from Wally and her dad, claiming to be holed up working on a story. Linda can’t be put off in the same way, but luckily she doesn’t press when Iris tells her that she’s fine and they’ll talk on Monday.

The truly obnoxious part of the whole situation is that Iris can easily see where the Flash is coming from. Clearly something had happened with the other meta, something that had deeply frightened the Flash, and he’d responded by wanting to protect the people close to him. On some level, Iris supposes she should be flattered that he counts her among those people: it’s evidence that their connection isn’t one-sided. However, she’s been pushing back against her father’s and brother’s overprotectiveness her entire life. She’s uninterested in adding yet another male to the equation, no matter how compelling his reasons.

The Flash does not contact her. She doesn’t text him, either. It’s not pride: she genuinely is not sure what she’d say to him at this point. She’s not going to back down, and from what she remembers of the stubborn tilt of his jaw, she suspects he won’t, either.

“So now what?” Linda asks on Monday, once Iris finishes telling her all that’s happened. Iris snags one of Linda’s fries and munches contemplatively. Big Belly Burger is packed—everyone needing a healthy dose of grease to get through the beginning of the week, Iris thinks.

“I don’t know,” Iris says, swallowing. “I keep doing my job, I guess, like I said I would. The Flash isn’t the only metahuman story out there, after all.”

“Well, obviously,” Linda says, protectively moving her remaining fries away from Iris. “And who knows if this other meta…guy…even is aware of your existence. The Flash could just be imagining trouble where there is none.”

“Exactly!” Iris says.

“But,” Linda continues, “that doesn’t mean you can just go gallivanting off wherever you like without any regard for your safety, Iris.”

“I don’t _gallivant_ ,” Iris protests and Linda rolls her eyes.

“My _point_ is that while the Flash was wrong to ask you to—well, whatever the hell he wanted you to do, that wasn’t entirely clear to me either—stop reporting? Never leave the office? Anyways,” Linda waves this away. “The point remains that it never hurts to be more careful.”

“I’m careful,” Iris mutters. “Both the things with Darren and Snart weren’t actually because I did something _stupid_.”

Linda rolls her eyes again. “I wasn’t saying that.” She takes a bite of her burger, brow furrowed. Iris waits patiently; Linda’s got her thinking face on, and Iris knows from long experience that she’ll only speak when she’s good and ready.

“You know, it didn’t occur to me until this weekend,” Linda says once she’s swallowed. “But maybe it’s for the best, you and the Flash taking a step back from each other. Don’t get mad,” she adds quickly, misreading Iris’s own frown. “But I was thinking. It’s…it’d be a bit of a conflict of interest for you, you know. If you and the Flash were actually…going to be involved. Romantically, I mean. It’s not super ethical of you to be reporting on him and sleeping with him at the same time.”

Iris sighs, sinking back into her chair. “Shit. You’re right, I know. It’s just…it was so unexpected, you know? I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet.”

“Yeah,” Linda says sympathetically.

“And now…it’s kind of a moot point, now.”

“Mmm,” Linda says neutrally.

Iris makes a face. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Linda shrugs. “I wasn’t. But you’re insane if you think this is the end for you and the Flash, not after one measly fight. You’re going to have to decide sooner or later how you want to handle the situation. Do you want to _be_ with the Flash, or do you want to cover him?”

For the rest of the day, Iris obsesses over this new wrinkle. She finds the CCPN code of conduct on the office server and prints it out, standing surreptitiously by the printer to ensure no one sees what she’s doing. She takes it home and reads it several times, highlighting all the relevant bits, but Linda’s right: CCPN’s code of ethical journalism stipulates that no reporter should write about or edit material about the people closest to them.

Iris knows that journalists develop relationships with their sources or subjects; that can hardly be helped. But what she and the Flash did in her living room doesn't fall within the bounds of a normal writer-subject relationship, and pretending otherwise would be disingenuous. Linda would never rat her out, but Iris hates the idea of putting her friend in that position.

“Argh,” she mutters, tossing the printed-out pages on her coffee table and pushing at her eyelids in frustration. Despite what Linda thinks, Iris and the Flash may be able to slide back into more professional waters. Hell, she’s not even sure she wants to be in a relationship with _anyone_ at the moment, let alone someone who comes with the sort of complications that the Flash brings. Maybe he wouldn’t be interested in one either, and she’s being hugely presumptuous, assuming that him being worried for her and caring for her automatically means that he’d want something more.

 _Stop being so dramatic_ , she tells herself firmly. Considering the current rift between them, there’s no point working herself into distraction over a problem that could very well not even become a problem.

And in the meantime, there are other metahumans out there, other stories. Not reporting on the Flash wouldn’t set her back completely. She needs to give it time.

*

A week goes by. She still hasn’t spoken to or seen the Flash, and it’s been quiet in Central City. It figures, Iris will think later, that Darren chooses this moment to make a reappearance.

She’s walking up the steps to CCPN, sending a text and balancing a tray of coffees for her dad and Eddie and totally not paying attention to her surroundings. Something, however, catches her eye and she glances up in time to spot Darren materialize in front of her, reaching out. She reacts instinctively, ducking away and tossing the hot coffees in his general direction. The drinks miss him but he has to twist aside as well and instead of grasping her neck, his hand slides over her shoulder, encased in a light jacket. Iris braces herself for the pull of his teleportation but nothing happens. He’s scowling, still reaching for her with his free hand, and she has a quick flash of understanding: he’d been touching her skin, before. He needs direct contact in order to teleport her away with him.

The knowledge gives her a burst of adrenaline; enough for her to wrench out of his grip and fall backwards, landing heavily on the stone steps. Pain radiates up her left wrist but she can barely process it, still focused on the meta in front of her. Darren snarls at her, lunging forward, and then a strange look comes over his face and suddenly he’s falling too.

Iris tries to scramble backwards but her arm hurts too badly for her to get very far. Darren collapses across her legs, twitching, and Iris realizes that he’s been shot. She hadn't even registered the gun going off. Blood blooms across the back of his shirt, spreading slowly. Iris looks up jerkily, in time to see a blonde uniform holster her gun and come running towards them.

Sound starts to filter back into her brain: more cops, yelling and pouring out of the front of the station, no doubt attracted by the gunshot. Iris blinks at Darren, still lying across her legs. Blood is dripping down onto her pants and the pavement below; she thinks with a hazy sort of disappointment that she’s wearing her favorite pair of jeans and they’re now likely ruined.

“—you okay?” The blonde, breathlessly crouched beside her. More cops surround them, one of them patting Darren down for weapons, one reaching to check his pulse.

“Don’t touch his skin,” Iris says suddenly, and they look at her, startled, before nodding and continuing to work. She has no idea how his powers work exactly, if any skin-to-skin contact can initiate it, but, well, better safe than sorry, she supposes. Someone’s on the phone barking orders and she hears “metahuman task force” and “West’s daughter” and then they pull Darren off of her.

Her wrist is throbbing. She doesn’t want to look at it, holds it cradled in her other arm. “Bus is on its way,” someone says, and then her dad appears by her side. She can hear Eddie’s voice but can’t work up the energy to process what he’s saying.

“Hey baby,” Joe says, his voice soothing. “The paramedics will be here shortly to take a look at you. Let’s get you inside.” He makes no reference to Darren, who’s still surrounded by cops. Iris doesn’t ask if the meta is alive and Joe doesn’t tell her. He helps her up, carefully avoiding her injured arm, and takes her into the station.

*

“Of course _your_ first broken bone is for something cool,” Wally says in mock disgust. He’s perched on the end of the bed in the ER. The sanitary paper covering the bed crinkles under him; outside the dividing curtains, machines from neighboring ER bays beep and people bustle busily around. The paramedics had taken her to CC General, where a harried-looking doctor barely out of med school had taken a look at her x-rays and diagnosed her with a broken wrist and some bruising before flying off to deal with other, more serious emergencies. A nurse had stopped in and told Iris that they would be putting a cast on her wrist “shortly” and then disappeared, but not before giving Iris painkillers so she doesn’t actually mind the wait. Wally had arrived twenty minutes ago with fresh clothes, allowing their father to leave her in order to go make phone calls and presumably yell at people.

“Almost getting kidnapped by a crazy metahuman isn’t actually _cool_ ,” Iris points out now, and then frowns at her brother. “Wait, how’d you break your first bone?”

Wally looks injured. “You don’t remember?”

“I don’t actually recall every single moment of your life, Wallace.”

“Rollerskating,” he says. “Carrie Andrews’ fifth-grade birthday party.”

“Oh, yeah.” Iris smiles. “That’s what you get for being a show-off.”

“I was _racing_ Jason Bailey,” Wally replies, affronted. “And I was totally gonna win, too.”

“Except you wiped out instead and broke your leg.”

“Yeah,” Wally sighs, then brightens. “My cast was dope, though.”

The curtain’s pulled back and Linda slips in, swishing it closed again behind her. Iris is amused to see her brother straighten, minutely adjusting his shirt as he looks at Linda, who doesn’t notice. “We _just_ talked about this,” Linda says, scowling at Iris. “You promised to be more careful!”

“I was _literally_ on the steps of CCPD,” Iris says. “How was I supposed to know he’d be dumb enough to come after me there?”

“Ugh,” Linda says, giving Iris a careful hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Girl, me too,” Iris says feelingly.

“Everyone sends their love,” Linda says. “Scott told me to tell you to take the next couple days off, although I’m sure he’s already texted you the same.”

“Screw that,” Iris says. “Darren doesn’t get to win.”

“Oh my god, _Iris_ ,” Linda retorts, rubbing exasperatedly at her forehead. “You were almost kidnapped, _again_. A guy was _shot_ in front of you. Take a goddamn day off. No one thinks that will mean he wins.”

“ _I_ will,” Iris says sulkily.

“Don’t mind her,” Wally says to Linda. “She’s talking nonsense right now. Painkillers. I’ll make her stay home. What’s this about ‘ _again_?’”

Iris opens her mouth to prevaricate but he reads the expression on her face and says, “Oh, don’t even think about lying to me, Iris.”

“I wasn’t—it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“That meta is a teleporter,” Linda says, ignoring Iris’s glare. “He took her to Gotham before the Flash rescued her last time.”

“ _Gotham_ —” Wally starts but before Iris can interject, the curtain’s pulled back once again and Joe slips inside, looking sober. “Hey, Linda,” he says. “Can you and Wally…?”

“Dad,” Wally says, and Iris transfers her glare to him. “ _Wally_.”

“What’s going on?” Joe asks. Wally gives her a pointed look and she sighs. “I’ll tell him.”

“Tell me what?” Joe’s voice is deceptively calm but he’s got his cop face on.

“I’d better…uh…” Linda clearly can’t think of a good enough excuse in time so she just says, “Iris, I’ll call you later,” and makes her escape. Wally follows her out; on any other day, Iris would be amused by that but most of her attention is on her father, standing motionless at the foot of the hospital bed. Iris sighs again and begins to talk. She doesn’t go into detail about the more…personal interactions she’d had with the Flash, reasoning that they had nothing to do with Darren and furthermore, are none of her father’s business. To his credit, he lets her speak without interruption, although his lips get thinner and thiner as she goes along.

When she’s finally done, there’s a long, dangerous silence. Then, very quietly, “And you didn’t once stop to think that this is something I should know? Setting aside the fact that I am your _father_ , I’m also a cop. I could have helped protect you.”

Iris bites her lip. “Dad, you have every right to be upset, but this guy was a _metahuman_.”

“Then why didn’t you go to the metahuman task force, if you couldn’t trust me?” Joe says. Iris has to resist the urge to roll her eyes at this with every fiber in her being.

“It had nothing to do with not trusting you and everything to do with not wanting you or CCPD to interfere with my work.”

“Your safety always comes before anything else, Iris.”

“I don’t ask you to put your safety before your duty as a cop, Dad,” she replies, trying to keep her voice even. “I know you don’t think my work merits the same consideration, but it isn’t up to you. It was _my_ choice and I made it, even though I knew that I could get hurt anyways.”

“Iris,” he begins and then breaks off, clenching his jaw. “Okay. This isn’t—we’ll continue this discussion later. I just spoke to Detective Rogers—she’s heading up the task force—and I’m sorry, but the meta…he didn’t make it.”

“Didn’t…oh.”

“Yeah. It’s not surprising, really,” Joe says, sighing. “Officer Spivot’s a good shot.”

Iris barely registers this, still processing the news. “He called himself Darren, but I couldn’t find any record of him.”

“They’re processing his prints and dental records. If he’s in the system, they’ll find him.” He studies her for several moments. “Once you get the cast put on, Rogers’ll want your official statement. They’ll want to see any correspondence you have with him as well.”

“I know,” Iris says absently, still thinking. “I don’t even really know what he wanted from me.”

Iris has met Detective Rogers before, but this is the first time she’s been on the receiving end of the woman’s brisk, no-bullshit stare. It’s sort of funny, she thinks, that Captain Singh would have chosen someone so relentlessly practical and almost humorless to head up the metahuman task force. On the other hand, it makes sense: When a talking, humanoid shark is par for the course, having someone who wouldn’t get overly lost in the _hows_ and _whys_ and would instead focus on dealing with the problem might seem like the right approach.

Rogers allows Joe to remain for Iris’s interview, which is how Iris knows she herself is not being thought of suspiciously, or at least, not yet. Rogers is clearly annoyed that Iris had not reported Darren’s previous kidnapping attempt to “the proper authorities” and when Iris replies that she’d been taking precautions, says shortly, “No matter what he may think, the Flash does _not_ count.”

“Sorry,” Iris says meekly, and Rogers shoots her an unimpressed look. She does ask Iris point-blank if she knows who the Flash is and only looks a little skeptical when Iris denies it. She also asks for the Flash’s number but doesn’t look surprised when Iris says she’ll need a court order before she’ll consider handing that information over.

“Well, it may come to that,” she says only, before moving on to ask how Darren’s telepathy felt. At the end of the interview, she requests that Iris stay available to answer any follow-up questions before taking herself off.

“She’s a good cop,” Joe says after Rogers leaves.

“Yeah,” Iris says, eyes on her father. “Captain Singh told me a while ago that you’d applied to be on the task force.”

“I was worried about you,” Joe says. “And with good reason, it turns out.”

Iris sighs. “I _am_ sorry, you know.”

“Yeah,” Joe says. “I know. C'mon, let's get you home."

*

Iris isn’t surprised when the Flash shows up on her balcony that night, after Wally and her father have gone home. She lets him in silently, retreating back to her kitchenette where she was in the middle of making some chamomile. “Want some?” she asks, nodding at the kettle.

“What?” He jerks his eyes up from her arm, encased in a purple cast. “Oh, no thank you. Do you need any…?”

“I’ve got it,” she replies. “Luckily, I’m right-handed, so.” She pours into her favorite mug and sets the kettle back down. Instead of moving to the living area, she remains standing at the breakfast bar. The Flash glances once behind him at the couch and then looks back at her quickly, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “Um…I can take the cowl off, if you want?”

“No,” Iris says.

He blinks at her, clearly startled. “Oh,” he says. “Okay.”

“I gave a statement to the cops today, and I’ll likely need to give a few more while they investigate,” Iris says. “I’m not going to volunteer information about you or anyone else, and unless there is a material reason for them to know your identity, I won’t divulge what I _do_ know, but the less information I have, the less likely it is I can run into trouble.”

“…Right,” he says, after a moment. Iris sighs. Exhaustion drags at her bones; the skin under her cast itches. “Can we…not have this conversation right now?” she says plaintively. “You came here to castigate yourself for not protecting me from Darren; I’d reply that you can’t be everywhere at once and also, it wasn’t your fight, blah blah blah.” She sets her tea down untouched and leans heavily against the counter. “It’s just…been a really long day, and I don’t have the energy to deal with you on top of everything else.”

He opens his mouth to reply and then closes it again. She can’t work up the effort to understand his expression. He says, gently, “Of course. Whatever you need, Iris.”

She lets out a long breath. “Thank you.”

“I mean it,” he says. “If there’s anything you need, anything that would help, let me know and I’ll do my best to make sure you get it.” There’s an odd formality to his tone and Iris can’t escape the idea that it sounds more like he’s making some sort of promise. She can’t figure out if it’s to her or to himself. His face is still and intense, focused on her, and for a moment she remembers what it was like to kiss him, to touch him. She swallows and nods, not really sure how to reply.

The Flash seems to rouse himself then, shaking his head slightly and stepping backwards. A wry smile touches his face as he looks around her apartment. “I actually expected to see a bunch of uniforms guarding your door.”

“What’s that saying, about locking a barn door after the horse has already escaped?” Iris says. He looks abashed at this. “Yeah, I guess.” His gaze returns to her face, insistently. “Will you—are you okay, though? I mean, apart from your arm?”

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

He doesn’t reply, eyes still on her.

“Anyways,” Iris says briskly, “I just need to get some sleep.” He gets the hint, turning to go. She feels a twinge of something suspiciously like regret, watching him. Before he can leave, she says, “Thanks. For checking up on me.”

The Flash turns back by the door to her balcony, looking at her. After a long moment, he says, “Take care of yourself, Iris.” Before she can respond, he’s gone.

*

 _You’re fired if you come in_ _early_ Scott had texted, so Iris doesn’t return to CCPN until two days after the Incident, as she’s taken to calling it. Scott’s in a meeting with the department heads and Linda’s out on an assignment, so apart from the odd “How’re you doing?” from various folks, Iris is left mostly alone for the first hour.

“Thought you were supposed to take another day?” Mason says, plopping down on one corner of her desk. He’s sitting on a bunch of her papers and wearing an inquisitive look while shoveling yogurt into his mouth. Iris had forgone breakfast that morning and the smell of strawberries makes her stomach grumble resentfully.

“No, I was always coming back today,” she says, leaning back in her chair. “D’you have any more of those?”

“In the fridge,” he says. “You can help yourself after we’re done.”

“Thanks,” she says. “What exactly are we doing?”

He shrugs one shoulder, licking the spoon clean and depositing the now-empty plastic cup in her trash. Iris makes a mental note to throw it away in the break room where it won’t smell later. “Just talking. Wanted to make sure my protégé is doing all right.”

“Protégé, huh?” Iris says, amused. “Since when?”

“Don’t redirect the conversation.” Mason’s voice is unruffled. “Without going into details, let me just say that I’ve been in a…similar situation, and I know how it feels.”

“…You’ve been almost kidnapped by a teleporting metahuman?” Iris says blankly.

Mason rolls his eyes. “You know that’s not what I meant.” Iris remembers, abruptly, his series on human trafficking across the Mexican border that had won him a Pulitzer. There were lots of rumors about the time he spent reporting the story floating around, but Iris has never been brave enough to ask him directly. Looking at him now, she sees a flash of something, some shadow in his eyes, and she deflates abruptly.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to be flippant.”

“Of course you did,” he says briskly. “Look, I didn’t come here to sit and talk about our feelings. I just wanted you to know…that I know. And I’m willing to stand you a round at the bar if you need it.” He shifts awkwardly on her desk. “Anyways. How’s the cast?”

Iris accepts his change of subject, saying ruefully, “Typing is a pain in the ass.”

“Want to make an intern take dictation?” Mason says, grinning.

Iris laughs. “I’m pretty sure Scott wouldn’t approve of that.”

“Please,” Mason scoffs. “That would be way more instructive than fetching coffee and pretending to copyedit the proofs for the eighty-fifth time.”

“Still. We’re supposed to be teaching them, not using them for manual labor.”

“You’re a much better person than me, Iris,” Mason says regretfully, shaking his head at her and standing to leave. “Well,” Iris says, “we all know _that’s_ true,” and Mason shrugs prosaically and wanders off towards his own desk. She watches him go, thoughtfully.

It’s true that she hasn’t yet had some sort of…emotional reaction, or whatever, about the Incident, and maybe that’s a problem. Iris has grown up with her father as an example, and Joe West never talked all that much about the darker aspects of his job. It occurs to her now that Joe would have been unlikely to open up to his daughter, no matter how old she is; he would have wanted to protect her. It’s also probable that there are some things you can’t confide in your children, no matter how close you are to them. She hopes he has someone he does confide in. She’s not sure if it’s something she should ask him about.

Later, on her way to Scott’s office, she swings by Mason’s desk. He’s typing furiously, scowling at his screen, and mutters “Hang on,” without looking away. She waits for a moment as he finishes his thought before glancing up at her. “What?”

“I’m not ready just yet,” she says, “but I’ll be taking you up on that offer of a drink.”

Mason looks at her searchingly and she waits, meeting his gaze. Whatever he sees seems to satisfy him because he gives a brief nod and says, “Welcome to the big leagues, kid. Let me know when, I’ll tell you where.”

Iris nods back and heads to Scott’s office.

“I’m surprised you took the full two days,” he says as she sits down across from him.

“You told me I would be fired if I didn’t,” Iris protests.

Scott raises a brow. “You believed me?”

“Well, I won’t in the future,” she grumbles.

“Hopefully there won’t be many more instances like this. Have the cops called you for any follow-ups?”

Iris shakes her head. “I forwarded them my correspondence with Darren, but I haven’t heard anything back.”

“I talked to our lawyers, and we think you’re fine so far, but the minute they start asking for more information on your sources, things that don’t directly relate to Darren, let me know and we’ll call them in to help.”

“I did tell her I’d need court orders before I would consider handing over information given to me in confidence,” Iris says and Scott nods approvingly. “You know,” he says, “when I found out your dad was a cop, I was worried. Most journalists have an instinctual distrust of the police, but I wasn’t sure how you’d react to dealing with them in a more adversarial situation.”

Iris tilts her head, thinking. “I still don’t feel like my interactions with them right now are _adversarial_ , but I do know what you mean. I think…maybe because I _am_ familiar with that world and what their tactics can be, I’m more likely to understand when they’re pushing at the bounds of what’s allowed?” She gives him a wry smile. “Also, yeah, my dad’s a cop, but I’m still black, you know?”

Scott matches her smile. “Yeah.”

“To be fair to Detective Rogers,” Iris continues, “she actually hasn’t tried anything on me. Probably because she knows that _I_ know and also probably out of respect for my dad, but still.”

“Well, keep your guard up,” Scott says and takes a breath. “On another note, I was thinking about what Darren said to you, the first time he tried to kidnap you.” He leans back in his chair, rubbing one hand over his head pensively. “You said he accused you of exploiting metahumans for your own gain, and that he was bothered by the fact that you’re not a metahuman yourself.” He shifts again in his chair, still thinking. “You deserve a lot of credit for breaking these stories when no one else was taking it seriously. You gave metahumans a voice and a chance to tell their stories, a chance to establish themselves outside of the crime-blotter headlines; your work is changing how people view metas.

“But as we move forward, I want you to be aware of your own privilege when interviewing and reporting on them. Darren was wrong to try and hurt you, but there is validity to his concerns. Reporting on marginalized communities always comes with its own set of hang-ups. Just because you’re also a member of another minority group does not make you exempt.”

Iris lets out a long breath. “You’re right, of course.” She rubs her face, suddenly tired. “Shit, I probably should have thought of that.”

Scott shrugs. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. You’ve only been reporting professionally for what, two, three years now? No one expects you to think of everything or know everything. That’s what I’m here for, and the other editors. It’s our job to point out potential roadblocks and help you smooth the way. Now you _are_ thinking about it, which is the important part.”

“Okay,” Iris says after a moment. “Thanks.”

“Is there anything else?” Scott asks. It’s a formality, but Iris hesitates, her mind going to the CCPN code of conduct printed out on her coffee table. She _could_ ask him, hypothetically, of course. “…Iris?”

“Sorry,” she says, snapping back to him. “No, I’m good.”

No one ever believes a question is just hypothetical.

*

“Hey Iris, something went down on Tenth and Summer Avenue. Possible meta connection. It just came through on the scanner.” Iris nods her thanks to Peter, who covers the police beat, and gathers up her bag. It’s one of those beautiful days Central City gets sometimes, the sky a crystalline blue and the air fresh and bracing. She makes her way downtown, enjoying the breeze from the water.

Social media’s oddly quiet, just mentions of the police investigating and nothing about whatever happened to bring them there. Crime scene tape has already been strung up by the time she arrives and she dodges several uniforms, making her way towards two detectives she knows from the metahuman task force, standing on the other side of the barrier. They’re talking to someone who crouches near what must be the crime scene, although Iris can’t make out exactly what they’re all looking at. The third man—he must be a CSI—rises in a fluid motion, listening to one of the detectives talk, and Iris slows down. His back is to her but there’s something about the way he stands that causes her to hesitate, watching. Then he lifts a hand to rub the back of his neck and turns slightly so she can see his profile.

“…Excuse me? Miss? You can’t be here.”

“…What?” Iris blinks at the uniform, who frowns at her. “Ma’am, this is a crime scene. You need to move away.” The uniform is not one she recognizes. She turns back to look at the detectives, at…no. “Sorry,” Iris says, her tongue thick in her mouth. “I’m going.”

The sky is overbright, a searing blue that hurts her eyes. Iris squints against the light, stumbling back to her car. She’s having a hard time focusing on anything in particular; it’s only down to sheer muscle memory that she’s able to fish her keys out of her bag and unlock her car, sliding into the driver’s seat and shutting the door. She has enough presence of mind to recognize that she probably shouldn’t be driving at the moment.

The Flash is police. He’s a CSI at CCPD. He probably knows her _father_ , Iris realizes with a start. He probably knew who she was all along. Once she thinks about it, she’s a little dumbfounded that she has never encountered him at a meta crime scene before now. She wonders how often he had to scramble to avoid her. She wonders why he even bothered in the first place.

After a while, she starts driving. No one speaks to her at CCPN once she arrives, which is a blessing. She wouldn’t be up for coherent conversation, anyways. She slouches down in her chair, staring off into space and thinking hard.

It’s not even that she feels foolish for not learning his identity before now—she’d been actively avoiding finding out, after all. But it would be different if he was some random person with absolutely no connections to her own life. If his work as the Flash and her work reporting on metahumans was the only link between them. It’d be easier to keep him at arm’s length, then.

Unfortunately, now that she knows he works for the police, her plausible deniability has become a lot thinner. Basically the only relevant thing she _doesn’t_ know about him is his name, a fact which is not going to matter very much to any competent lawyer or investigator. Iris now knows _too_ much, making this last detail almost inconsequential. So.

A phone call and several generous fibs later, she has a list of all the CSIs currently employed by Central City. It’s the work of a moment to narrow it down to the one possible person. She stares at the department-issued photo displayed on her screen, tracing over short brown hair and familiar green eyes, stares at the Flash, unmasked.

His name is Barry Allen.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I adapted CCPN’s code of conduct from the NYT’s [Handbook on Ethical Journalism](http://www.nytco.com/wp-content/uploads/NYT_Ethical_Journalism_0904-1.pdf). I’m not a journalist and realize I may be reaching here, but the question of Iris’s (and Lois Lane’s, for that matter) ethical dilemma in reporting on someone she’s in a romantic relationship with is VEXING to me.


	7. Part Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge apologies for the wait on this chapter, guys. I’m a slow writer. Unfortunately there’s not like a pill I can take for that (if there IS a pill please TELL ME OMG).

“What the hell kind of name is Bartholomew, anyways?”

Barry jerks upright, nearly dropping the test tube he is holding. Iris West is standing in the door of his lab, one hand on her hip, eyebrows raised. For one heart-stopping moment, he literally cannot think of anything to say. “Uh…the kind I inherited from my grandfather?”

Well, _that_ isn’t particularly smooth, either.

“Really,” she says, prowling into the room. Despite the cast on her arm, she looks like something out of one of his more potent fantasies, wearing a white top and a grey, fitted skirt with heels that make his mouth go dry. Barry swallows and remains still, watching her walk towards him. Even with the blue cast, she’s exquisite, and completely out of place in his dingy lab. “I have to admit, ‘Bartholomew Allen’ isn’t exactly a name I’d associate with a superhero’s alter-ego. Now, Oliver Queen, _that_ screams superhero.” She comes to a stop a foot away from him. “Which is probably why _he_ definitely is not one. Too obvious.”

“Er…” says Barry.

“Anyways,” she continues, missing his awkward fumbling over Oliver Queen, Definitely Not A Superhero. “I have to admit, I’m a little impressed. I’m at the station all the time and I never once spotted you.”

“I may have gone out of my way to avoid you,” Barry allows. “There may have been some abrupt about-faces from the bullpen. I may even have run once or twice.”

She gives him a measured look. “You must have worked _some_ of the crime scenes I went to.”

“Hence the running,” he replies. “It helps that I’m fast.”

Iris rolls her eyes at that, wandering over to his desk and perching on the edge. Her legs stretch out in front of her and Barry consciously does not let his eyes linger. “How’d you figure it out?” he says instead.

“I saw you yesterday, working.”

His mind flashes back to the crime scene. He hadn’t noticed her, but then again, he hadn’t been looking. Stupid of him.

“Did you know who _I_ was?” she asks. She’s not looking at him and Barry understands that the question is important to her.

“Not—not exactly. But that first time, on the Jitters rooftop, I recognized you. I knew who your dad was. I didn’t know your name, then. But I looked you up later.” He pauses, and then says carefully, “I thought you didn’t want to know my identity.”

“I didn’t,” she says briefly. “But once I saw you at the crime scene…” She shrugs, tracing a pattern on the surface of the desk with her unencumbered hand. She doesn’t meet his gaze. “There didn’t seem to be any reason to pretend otherwise.”

“I wanted to tell you,” Barry says in a rush. “But you kept repeating that it was better for you not to know, and I didn’t want to force you into an awkward position…”

“I know.” Iris finally looks up. “I’m not…I’m not actually upset with you. It’s not like you were directly lying to me, or anything. It’s just…it’s strange to think that you were right here all this time.”

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

“Well,” she replies, back straightening, “it’s done, now. No point in being upset about it.”

There’s something not quite right about her tone, but Barry isn’t sure that pressing her on it now is the correct approach. He says, still watching her carefully, “Is there anything you want to know? About me?”

She meets his eyes then, squaring her shoulders. “I did some research last night, after I found out.”

“Ah,” he says noncommittally.

“Is the man you’re after—the yellow streak—he’s the one who killed your mother?”

He probably shouldn’t be surprised at her directness. Iris has never been one to beat around the bush. Still, something of his distress must show, because she says in a softer tone, “I’m sorry. But I found the old police reports with transcripts of your interviews, and it made sense…”

Barry takes a deep breath. “It’s okay.”

“The night you met him again. Did he…did he threaten you?”

“Not me,” he says.

Iris is silent for a moment, watching him. Eventually she says, “I see.” She pushes off the desk, eyes steady on him. “That’s why you were worried for me. Why you warned me off.”

“Iris, if he hurts you because of me…”

She walks toward him and he lets the rest of the sentence die in his mouth. She stops in front of him, her eyes steady and serious on his. “It still wouldn’t be your fault. You are not responsible for his actions, or for mine. As I said before, I’m not going to stop reporting, stop doing my job, because of you or him or anyone. Flash…” She hesitates, her brow wrinkling. “What—what do I call you? _Bartholomew_ seems a bit much.”

“Barry,” he says, swallowing.

“Barry,” she repeats, her eyes thoughtful, and then she smiles. “I like it. Barry.”

The sound of his name on her lips shouldn’t affect him so much. She’s only a stride away from him. He could take one step forward and she’d be in his arms. His hands twitch at the thought.

“Hey, Allen, do you have—oh, Iris…” Detective Thawne halts in his tracks, staring at the two of them. Iris doesn’t so much as blink. She greets the detective casually before turning to Barry and saying smoothly, “Thanks for your help on my story, I really appreciate it.”

He nods mutely at her and she strides out calmly, asking Thawne as she leaves if her father is downstairs. Barry doesn’t miss the way Thawne watches her leave, recognizing the look in the other man’s eyes as the twin to how he himself must appear. Thawne turns back to Barry once she’s gone, eyebrows raised. “I didn’t realize you knew Iris.”

Barry isn’t sure he can match Iris’s nonchalance but gives it his best effort anyways. “She’s had questions on metahuman-related crimes for some of her stories.”

“Ah,” Thawne says, still giving him that thousand-yard stare Barry’s sure every cop has patented. “You know, Allen, the Captain doesn’t really like it when we talk to the press without the media liaison present.”

For some reason, this makes Barry smile. “She’s Detective West’s daughter. She probably spends more time in the bullpen than the media liaison does.”

“True,” Thawne concedes, not without a reluctant smile of his own. “Just be careful, you know? Yeah, she’s Joe’s daughter, but you don’t want the lines to get blurred.”

 _If only you knew_ , Barry thinks.

In the Cortex later that day, Barry announces, “Iris knows.” Three pairs of eyes swivel up to stare at him uncomprehendingly. “About my identity, I mean,” he clarifies quickly.

“Ah,” Dr. Wells says, leaning back.

“How’d she find out?” Cisco asks, rolling his chair over to Barry’s workstation.

“She saw me at a crime scene, connected the dots.”

“Honestly I’m surprised it took this long,” Caitlin says musingly. “Given your _continued proximity_ to her.” She gives him a pointed look and then adds, almost as an afterthought, “What with her dad working in the same building as you, I mean.”

Barry flushes and looks away, embarrassed. Cisco says, “So what happens now?”

“I don’t know, we didn’t finish talking about it,” Barry replies, and as Caitlin opens her mouth, says hurriedly, “We got interrupted mid-conversation by one of the detectives.”

“Oooh, can I meet her? Can we show her STAR Labs?”

“I don’t think that’s the wisest course of action,” Dr. Wells says and Barry nods. “Yeah, actually—she’s had to talk to a bunch of cops about Darren, and some other metahuman stuff, and I guess plausible deniability is a big deal for her, so.”

Cisco deflates, disappointed. “Maybe once things have died down?”

“You just want to know if she’s as pretty in person as her photo suggests,” Caitlin says acidly.

“She’s prettier,” Barry says without thinking, and can’t even be mad when both Cisco and Caitlin laugh at him.

He’s honest enough to admit to himself that part of him is worried about Iris knowing his “real” identity. As the Flash, he can always fall back on his superhero status. Barry Allen doesn’t have that luxury. He can’t pretend to be anything other than what he is: a mostly nerdy CSI who doesn’t even get a badge or a gun. The Flash is the fastest man alive. Barry Allen lives in his lab and gets excited about weird facts and hasn’t been on a proper date in years.

He knows that thinking about himself in this way, as though there are two separate identities at play, has the potential to book him a one-way ticket to Arkham. But he also knows that there’s always going to be a part of himself that struggles to reconcile the kid who was called crazy and was bullied throughout his school years with the superhero known as the Flash. He understands instinctively why Iris West, beautiful and accomplished, is attracted to the Flash. He’s not sure she’ll be interested in Barry Allen. He’s not sure he can blame her for it, either.

*

The next morning, the _Daily Planet_ breaks a story about a potentially huge corruption scandal in the Central City mayor’s office. Scott is pissed enough about the scoop that he orders everyone not under deadline to drop what they’re doing and help with CCPN’s own investigation. The Politics team, who are even more pissed than Scott about getting scooped in their own backyard, dispatches Iris and Linda to the state courthouse to go through old filings that might be related. It’s boring, tedious work, made all the more so when they discover that the _Daily Planet_ reporters were already there weeks ago.

“Anything we find, they probably already have,” Linda complains after returning with even more files from the courthouse clerk, who would clearly like nothing more than to call security on them.

Iris sighs, flipping through another deposition. “Mason said he warned Metro last month about the _Planet_ being in town and they did nothing.”

“Ugh.” Linda glares down at the records. “I hate shit like this. Why’d you think I went into Sports?”

“Oh, please,” Iris says, shooting her friend an amused look. “You guys can spend three hours talking about baseball stats. You think the _NFL Combine_ is newsworthy.”

“It is!” Linda protests. “People care. _I_ care.”

“Have the results of the ten-yard-dash ever been indicative of someone’s later performance in the NFL?”

“The fact that you even know there _is_ a ten-yard-dash at the Combine indicates…” Linda trails off, thinking. “Well, it indicates something, I’m sure.”

The only blessing about the whole situation, at least from Iris’s perspective, is that the work is just mind-numbingly nitpicky enough to distract her from other things, such as her conversation with the Flash—with Barry. In a way, she’s grateful for Eddie’s interruption as she still isn’t sure just how to handle her relationship with the Flash— _with Barry_ —moving forward. It might have been nice, she thinks wryly, if seeing him unmasked had been enough to magically switch off her attraction to him, but that is unfortunately not the case.

She’d known that he had green eyes and had guessed he’d have darker hair. The shape of his body she also already knew. But seeing him in civilian clothes is like finding the answer to a question she hadn’t even realized she’d been thinking about, like completing a puzzle she’d been working on for a long time. He is the Flash, and he is Barry Allen. Seeing him unmasked makes her feel like she is finally seeing all of him, for the first time.

And he _is_ cute, if not outright pretty like Eddie or some movie star. She’s glad of that: if he’d been model-beautiful, she’d have found him intimidating, their past intimacies notwithstanding. But he’s…approachable, instead. Still compelling, but not overwhelmingly so. He’s the Flash, yes, but still she feels like she could stand on equal ground with him.

Which is _not_ a helpful realization, given her continuing confusion.

Less confusing is his backstory regarding the man in yellow. The records Iris had dug up had shown her a young, traumatized boy who had been stalwart in his insistence on the identity of his mother’s killer. Her heart had broken a little, reading some of the interview reports. It had probably been an invasion of Barry’s privacy, but by that point she’d connected the dots between what young Barry had reported and the yellow streak he is so afraid of in the present day. This streak is clearly a meta, and metas, after all, are Iris’s speciality. This is a mystery she can help solve.

At five pm sharp, the clerk kicks them out of the records department and they trudge back to CCPN, dusty and irritable. There’s a very tense-looking meeting going on in Scott’s office with all the senior editors, and a passing copy-editor tells them to avoid the “war room” at all costs.

“Is that what we’re calling it now?” Linda mutters to Iris before breaking off to her desk in Sports. Iris continues across the room to Mason’s side, leaning a hip against his desk.

“Please tell me you didn’t piss off Cheryl,” he says, looking up at her. Cheryl is the courthouse clerk, and Mason had informed them before they left that morning that she is “a valuable asset, so don’t fuck it up.”

“I don’t think Cheryl needed any encouragement, or really even any interaction with us at all in order to be pissed off,” Iris replies. “I think that’s basically her default position.”

Mason smirks up at her. “You just gotta know how to sweet-talk her.”

“Ew,” Iris says feelingly.

“Find anything?”

“What do you think?” Iris returns, eyeing the beer on his desk longingly. If it had been Linda’s, she would have swiped it without question.

“There’s more in the fridge,” he says, following her gaze. “You took one for the team today. No one expected that you guys would find anything, but on the off-chance you did…”

“I know,” she says. “Are court filings always that boring?”

“Just wait until you need to read municipal statues for something,” he tells her and she shudders and pushes off the desk in search of alcohol.

*

 _Sorry, I’m gonna be stuck at CCPN until the end of time, probably_ , Iris texts him the next day.

 _No worries_ , Barry replies, unsurprised. By this point, all of Central City is aware of the corruption probe. _Let me know when you’re free._ He doesn’t want to be another source of stress for her. At least, any more than he probably already is.

Iris now knowing has changed something for him. It’s strange; keeping his identity a secret had informed so much of what he’d done in the early months as the Flash. It had shaped the way he’d approached his life in Central City, forcing him to remain closed off from the people around him. He’d consistently refused to engage with his father over why he’d moved back in the first place, and then later, after he’d recovered from the coma and Henry had returned to National City, Barry had waved off any subsequent visits, making up excuses about his heavy caseload with CCPN. He’d allowed his role as the Flash to distance himself from Henry. They’d been close, once. There is no reason to think they couldn’t be close again.

Over the next few days, he mulls over the idea of telling his father the truth. The more he thinks about it, the more decided he becomes. There is, of course, the undeniable truth that life as the Flash can be dangerous—if anything were to happen to him, he knows that Caitlin or Cisco would make sure that Henry was told, but Barry doesn’t like the idea of his father finding out in such a traumatic fashion. And then there’s the fact that Henry is a medical doctor and has knowledge that might come in handy. Of course Caitlin can and does research anything medical that comes their way, and she’s been more than capable in dealing with the medical emergencies that have come up so far, but she’d never worked as a practicing physician before STAR Labs exploded. It’s sort of ridiculous of them not to take advantage of Henry’s expertise. Provided he’s willing to give it, that is.

Unfortunately, there isn’t exactly a template for this sort of revelation that he can fall back on; he didn’t even get to tell Iris directly. He thinks about calling his father and suggesting a visit but in the end decides that there’s no time like the present. Besides, what’s the point of having superspeed if you can’t make it work for you?

Henry’s face, opening the door to his son, is a picture of surprise. “Bear—what? How?”

“I’ll explain,” Barry says, grinning, as his dad blinks at him and then pulls him forward for a rough hug.

“Son, I don’t—how’d you get here? Did you fly? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You gonna let me in?” Barry asks, still grinning. It’s been nearly a year since he’d last seen his father—since just after his recovery—and he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed him.

“Of course, of course, but—where’s your luggage? You should have called me from the airport, I would have come get you.” Henry steps back, allowing Barry to come inside the small, two-bedroom townhouse he’d moved into after Barry had gone off to college. Consequently, Barry has never spent longer than a summer here. It doesn’t feel like home, but Henry’s done a reasonable job making it comfortable. The photos on the mantle, from before Nora’s death, always give Barry a twinge, but after so many years, he’s used to it. And since becoming the Flash, he’s filled now with more sense of purpose than he ever has had before.

He’s thirsty from his run halfway across the county. After filling a glass with water, Barry joins his father in the living room, sitting down and taking a deep breath. “So, it turns out that being caught in the particle accelerator explosion gave me powers.”

Henry stares at him. “Powers.”

“Yeah,” Barry says. “I’m fine apart from that—completely healthy. But, yeah.”

His father’s face settles into unreadable lines. “I knew I should never have allowed you to convalesce in STAR Labs. What the _hell_ did they do to you?”

“Dad, it isn’t like that,” Barry protests. “It’s only because of STAR Labs that I understand what’s happened to me. And I meant what I said—I’ve never been in better condition than I am now.”

His father is silent for a long time. Then he says, “Tell me everything. Start at the beginning.”

Barry does.

*

“Hey, Iris?”

Iris glances around, searching for the unfamiliar voice, and experiences a brief shock when she recognizes the speaker. It’s the blonde uniform, something Spivot, who’d shot Darren that day on the steps. She pauses outside the CCPD bullpen as the other woman joins her, expression tentative.

“Sorry, I just…I was hoping to talk to you? Just for a minute?”

“Um, sure,” Iris says, and nods her head to the hallway. Officer Spivot follows her into the relative quiet and takes a deep breath.

“I wanted to apologize to you, about what happened.”

Iris frowns. “Apologize? For what?”

“For…for shooting that meta. I—it happened so fast, and I know you got hurt too,” she says in a rush, motioning to the cast on Iris’s wrist, “and I’m just—I’m sorry it played out like that, is all.”

“Wait, I don’t understand,” Iris says, staring at her. “Also, I’m so sorry, I can’t remember your first name?”

“Oh, it’s Patty. Patty Spivot.”

“Hi, Patty,” Iris says, smiling, and Patty smiles back uncertainly. “Look, you saved my life. You don’t need to apologize for that.”

“Right, but I feel like I should have handled it…differently…”

“I don’t know what Darren was planning,” Iris says firmly, “but I’m glad I never had to find out.” She doesn’t envy the situation Patty’s in—she can’t imagine what it’s like to take a life, nor can she imagine being faced with the choice Patty was. She doesn’t want to add to the guilt Patty’s clearly experiencing in the aftermath.

“Okay,” Patty says, “well. Okay.” She takes a deep breath, straightening her shoulders. “Thanks, Iris.”

“Of course,” Iris says, waving her off.

Patty nods at her and heads up the stairs while Iris pokes her head into the bullpen, searching for her father. Detective Rogers catches her eye and waves so Iris reluctantly walks over to her desk. After inconsequential chit-chat about how Iris is feeling and when her cast will come off, Rogers says, “We still haven’t had much luck in tracking down anything about Darren. We’ve been in touch with the Gotham police; we’ll see if they can come up with anything.”

“Gotham?”

Rogers shrugs. “Might be a long shot, but I wondered why he chose to take you there, as opposed to somewhere else. Maybe it was more familiar ground for him.”

“Huh,” Iris says thoughtfully. “That’s smart.”

Rogers shrugs again. “Like I said, it could go nowhere.” She eyes Iris speculatively and says abruptly, “Had any more thoughts about connecting me to the Flash?”

 _Try upstairs_ , Iris thinks. “I can ask him, but I doubt he’d be interested. It’s not like he doesn’t already know how to get in touch with you,” she says in what must surely be the understatement of the year.

Rogers looks resigned but unsurprised. “Well, we’ll keep you updated.” She nods a dismissal and Iris beats a path out of the bullpen, heading up the stairs.

As she approaches the door to the lab, she hears voices, one male, one female, and instinctively slows.

“…for helping me with my application, I appreciate it _so_ much,” the woman’s saying, and Iris frowns, recognizing Patty’s voice.

“Oh,” she hears Barry say, “really, it’s not problem at all—”

“And after I babbled at you for like _two_ _hours_ during dinner, I don’t know why you didn’t just tell me to shut up—”

“No, I mean, I went through the same thing,” Barry says, “I totally get what you’re going through…”

He says something else that Iris doesn’t catch and Patty laughs, her voice low and intimate. A flash of wretchedness flows through Iris, and she grits her teeth. It’s not as though she and the Flash—she and Barry—had any sort of—of—understanding. They’d hooked up once, and had barely discussed it since. Barry is free to flirt with whomever he likes, and it’s clear that Patty is more than a little interested. It’s none of Iris’s business.

She silently backs up a few steps, and then strides forward again, allowing her shoes to click loudly on the floor as she sweeps through the doorway. Patty and Barry are standing together at the end of the lab. One of Patty’s hands rests on Barry’s forearm, and they both look amused. Iris plasters a wide smile on her face, coming further into the room.

Barry sees her and steps away from Patty, abruptly. A tiny, petty part of Iris feels a surge of triumph, followed immediately by a thread of shame, and she stops walking. She’s not sure what she thinks she’s trying to prove. “Sorry, I can come back?”

“Oh, no,” both Patty and Barry say at the same time. They stop, looking at each other, and Patty laughs again. Barry does a little as well, awkwardly, a dull red flush rising up his neck as he looks between her and Patty, and Iris wishes she is anywhere but here.

“I was just leaving,” Patty says to Iris. “Barry, I’ll talk to you later?”

He nods, mutely, and she leaves the room, giving Iris a friendly nod as she walks by. Iris can’t think of anything else to do but nod back. Five long seconds pass in silence. Barry’s still flushed, eyes averted. Iris says tentatively, “I should’ve texted first.”

“No, it’s okay,” Barry says quickly. He finally meets her eyes and turns even more red, which she would have said was impossible. “Patty—it’s not what you think.”

Iris pauses, unsure. “I wasn’t…thinking anything.”

“Okay,” he says. “I…okay. Um. Is there—is everything all right?”

“Yeah, I just—I thought maybe we should talk again, about…stuff,” she says, lamely. At the moment she can’t quite put into words why she’d come. It had just seemed important to see him, to talk to him, this time hopefully without interruption.

“Okay,” he says again, eyes still on her.

“Uh.” Iris casts around for something to say, hating that they’ve been reduced to this. It had never been difficult to talk to him, before things had gotten so…complicated. She steps closer, lowering her voice. “I saw Detective Rogers downstairs. She wants to talk.”

He makes a funny little face. “I know. Both she and Captain Singh are just _dying_ to get in touch with the Flash.”

“With _you_ , you mean.”

His eyes flick away and then back to her. “Yeah.”

“Would there be any harm in it?” Iris asks, struck by his reaction.

Barry shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t really like setting the precedent, to be honest. I don’t want to give them the idea that I’ll come running whenever they call.” He shrugs again. “It’s kind of nice, talking through…well, through you. I like having that buffer.”

Iris isn’t sure what to say. On one hand, that he trusts her to represent him to the rest of the world _is_ sort of flattering. And she understands him not wanting to be beholden to anyone else, let alone a police force whose interests don’t necessarily align with his all the time. On the other hand, she also doesn’t think that Barry _needing_ a buffer between himself and the rest of the world sounds particularly healthy. And there’s the added complication of—no, she is _not_ going to keep thinking about the stupid ethical boundaries, especially not after witnessing whatever-that-was between him and Patty.

“Well, for what it’s worth,” she says finally, “it probably isn’t a terrible idea to have the chief of police and the head of the meta task force on your side.”

He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I’ll think about it.” A beat goes by and he says, eyes flicking to hers, “Was that what you wanted to talk to me about?”

“No,” she says, making a snap decision, “it wasn’t, actually. I wanted to talk about the man in yellow.”

“Iris…” he says, stiffening.

“Clearly, he is a threat to you,” she continues on, heedless. “So, let’s catch the bastard.”

Barry blinks at her. “It’s not that simple.”

“Well, _obviously_ ,” she says, rolling her eyes, “otherwise you would have done it by now. But I want to help.” As she says it, she can feel the rightness of it settling over her. The man is a danger, and what’s more, he’s a distraction to the Flash and to the good work that the Flash does. “This guy is a meta, right? Well, that makes him my problem as well. I have connections you don’t. I can help you track him down.” He takes a breath and she says quickly, “And please stop with the whole ‘He’s dangerous’ bit. _I know_. If you don’t work with me, I’ll just try to find him on my own, without you.”

“If anything happens to you,” Barry begins but she interrupts sharply, “What about if anything happens to _you_? Central City needs the Flash.” And then, gentling her tone, “We need you, Barry Allen.” She doesn’t say _I need you_ , but she thinks it all the same.

His chest expands on an inhale but she refuses to let herself get distracted. “Iris,” he says, his eyes on hers. “Flash,” she replies, trying for levity, but at the look on his face, she sobers. “Barry. Please. Will you let me help you?”

He just gazes back at her for a long moment, and then sighs, resigned. “I don’t think I can say no to you twice.”

“Most people can’t,” she assures him, wanting to lift his spirits. She doesn’t want him to feel like she badgered him into anything; she wants to be useful to him. She wants to help.

“I suppose that’s what makes you such a good reporter, huh?”

“That, and my _sparkling_ personality.” Iris grins at him, willing him to grin back, willing him to let her cheer him up. And it’s like her mood is transmitted to him, because he does, his face lighting up, and her breath catches. It’s the first time she’s seen him smile without his mask. The sight of it, boyish and open and completely disarming, sends a bolt of emotion straight through her. She’s never before had such a visceral reaction to something as simple as a smile, and the impact is akin to getting punched in the gut.

_Well, shit._

*

**TBC**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What the hell is Caitlin’s actual professional training in? Is she a bioengineer? A neurosurgeon? Geneticist?? SHOW MAKE UP YOUR MIND. Also I know fandom likes to call Patty out for her “shoot first” mentality, which I don't necessarily disagree with, but I feel like Iris would not want Patty to feel guilty about saving her life.


	8. Part Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Iris makes some new acquaintances, Barry loses his temper, and everyone else tries not to judge him for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiiii. I’m back. I’m terrible. I’m sorry.

Three days later, Barry taps on the glass door to Iris’s balcony. She opens it, ushering him in. “Thanks for coming. No suit?”

He shrugs, standing in her living room, unsure where to sit. The couch still seems fraught with memories of what happened the last time he ( _they_ ) sat on it, but Iris either doesn’t think of it or doesn’t care, plopping down on one end and motioning for him to join her. Barry sits on the other end, fighting down the recollection of her skin under his hands, her mouth under his. On the coffee table is the box he’d given her, containing all the files he’s gathered over the years on his mother’s murder and the man in yellow.

“So I went through all this,” she says, “as well as the files I could pull from the police archives and the news reports. I’m sure there’s nothing in those that you haven’t already seen.” Barry nods, and she continues, “I’ve also been in touch with my contacts in the meta world, and no one reports hearing or seeing anything like what you’re describing, until the night he reappeared to you.”

She takes a breath, grabbing a green folder from the table and handing it to him. “There are a couple metas in Central City who had some observations from that night—nothing concrete, no one got a clear look at him. But they’ve all had a while to get used to your presence, what you feel like or sound like, or even, in the case of one of them, _smell_ like, and they agree that this meta is not the exact same type of speedster that you are. He _is_ a speedster, that much is obvious, but, well…” Iris trails off, motioning to the folder. “To be perfectly honest, some of what they were talking about was a little bit above my pay grade, but I thought you might be able to do something with it.”

Barry flips it open, paging quickly through the material. “This could be really useful, yes. They’re okay with me getting in touch with them, following up?”

She nods. “Yeah, I already prepped them for that. Let me know if any of them have second thoughts about meeting you, though—I’d be happy to go with you if that would help pave the way.”

“Iris,” he says, flipping the folder shut and smiling at her, “thank you. I’ve spent so many years banging my head against the wall, getting nowhere, and here you are, already coming up with something.”

She shrugs. “I mean, we don’t even know if any of that will be useful.”

“Maybe not, but it feels good to actually be _doing_ something for a change.”

“To that end,” she says hesitantly, “I was thinking…It seems strange to me that this meta waited, what—over a decade? Decade and a half?—before making another reappearance. The last thing we want is for him to go back in hiding for _another_ decade.” She straightens up on the couch, looking at him head-on. “What if we tried to lure him out, instead?”

Barry stares at her. “You mean like, set a trap for him?”

“Well,” Iris says, “that would be ideal, of course, but without knowing the extent of his powers, I don’t know how we could even begin to go about constructing something adequate. Look, these other metas might help us get a better idea of what he is, and I’m sure that you or…whoever you work with will be able to do more with that than I could. But it seems to me that we need more information. We need more data. And the only way we can be assured of getting more is if we can find him, and the easiest way to do _that_ is by getting him to come to us.”

“I don’t know,” he says slowly. “There’s so much we can’t control, we can’t plan for.”

“Yes, but wouldn’t it be better for us to have it even slightly on our terms, rather than how he showed up unexpectedly and caught everyone with their pants down?” There’s a brief pause as they both process what she’s just said and how inadvertently accurate it was. He’d been about to remove her dress when the call had come in, and he’s pretty sure his suit would have followed. If the man in yellow had appeared five minutes later… Iris flushes. “Uh…”

“It’s okay,” Barry says swiftly, wanting to spare her. “I know what you mean.”

“Um, right,” she stammers, then gives her head a shake. “Okay. Anyways. Will you think about it? My idea, I mean?”

He leans back, disappointment flowing through him. Now would have been the time to talk about what happened between the two of them, but it’s clear Iris doesn’t want to, is in fact trying to pretend like it never happened. He would never push a subject she so obviously doesn’t want to pursue, but he can’t help the sinking sensation in his stomach. He wonders suddenly if she’d have had a different response if he was in the Flash suit; if she still didn’t know who he was underneath it. He hadn’t worn it because he’d come straight from the lab and hadn’t seen the need. She already knows he is Barry Allen. She knows his face. Regret rises in his throat, bitter and cloying.

“…Barry?” She’s frowning at him, and he realizes he hasn’t answered her question.

“Yeah, I’ll think about it,” he says, standing up abruptly. He doesn’t want to be on the damn couch any longer.

“Oh,” Iris says, blinking up at him. “Okay, yeah.”

“I’ll let you know what I decide,” he says, moving towards the balcony. “I better go. I’ll be in touch.”

He’s gone before she can reply.

*

There are other things she can do in the meantime, while she waits for Barry to make up his mind. Darren, for one, is a loose end that she wants to tie up, and here Detective Rogers finally comes through. “His real name was Edward Markham. He _was_ from Gotham,” she tells Iris over the phone, “he moved to Central City about eighteen months ago.”

 _Right before the particle accelerator explosion_ , Iris thinks to herself, before asking, “Did he have any sort of prior history or record with the Gotham PD?”

“No record of prior aggression,” Rogers replies. “From what we can tell, he was pretty much a loner, no family left alive, old coworkers thought he was strange and antisocial. He had a habit of filing complaints, however,” she adds. “His old HR department had a thick file on him—he tended to hold grudges, blamed people for things he perceived as unfair towards him. It’s possible thatonce he had his meta powers, he finally felt powerful enough to do something about a grievance for the first time, instead of just complaining.”

“Huh,” Iris says, somewhat at a loss. She recalls Scott’s warning to her, about her privilege with regard to metahumans. Darren was wrong to try and kidnap her, but perhaps his grievance this time hadn’t been entirely misplaced. It’s strange, to sympathize with someone who had so frightened her. She’s not particularly interested in discussing this with Detective Rogers; she has a feeling the other woman doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying about nuances. “Well, thanks for letting me know, I guess.”

She debates looking into Edward Markham herself but ultimately rejects the idea. She’s not sure what learning more about him will do for her. Rogers hadn’t turned up anything of note in his apartment in Central City, and evidently there was no one remaining in Gotham who knew him well. The only person who can tell her what Edward had intended to do with her is dead, and she’s old enough to know that life doesn’t always give you answers to all the questions you had. Figuring out how to make your peace with that uncertainty is just one of the parts about being a grownup that no one actually tells you about.

*

Cisco, of course, is in love with the idea of devising a trap for the man in yellow. Unsurprisingly, Caitlin is less enthused, pointing out (accurately, it must be said) that they have absolutely no idea what sort of parameters they’d even need to follow in order to begin constructing such a trap. What Barry hadn’t been expecting, however, was Dr. Wells’ reaction: After silently looking over the data Iris had collected, he’d agreed with Cisco that they had to try.

“Really?” Barry says, blinking. “I just assumed…you’d think it was a dumb idea…”

“Not at all, Mr. Allen,” Dr. Wells replies, a slight smile on his lips. “Your Ms. West isn’t wrong; we need more data, and we can’t just wait around for this…speedster…to decide to emerge once again. Luring him out seems the best bet.”

Beside him, Cisco makes a tiny noise of glee. “I do agree with Doctor Snow,” Dr. Wells continues, ignoring Cisco, “that it seems foolhardy to try and construct a trap for him, at least at this go-around. We simply do not have enough information; anything we try will likely be a waste of time and resources, especially since, as Ms. West’s information shows, he’s not a speedster in the exact same mold as you. So we can’t use you as a template to go off of to build such a trap.

“It seems to me that our best course of action is to lure him out once again in order to record enough data for us to be able to construct a trap at a later date. Our goal right now is to make sure you, Barry, are protected from him.”

Cisco deflates slightly, looking disgruntled, but Barry can see that Doctor Wells is right. “Okay,” he says, taking a breath, “so where do we start?”

“We need to get his attention somehow,” Cisco says, frowning. “Except I have no idea how to do that. It’s not like we can take out a billboard or something with his name on it.” He snorts. “We don’t even _have_ a name for him.”

“Nicknaming the man in yellow should not be a priority for you,” Caitlin tells him, and Cisco makes a face at her.

“A billboard might be overkill,” Dr. Wells says, “but there might be another way to get a message to him.” His gaze rests thoughtfully on Barry, who shifts uncomfortably. “You said your Ms. West offered to help?”

“No,” Barry says immediately, catching on. “We’re keeping Iris out of it.”

“She _is_ the go-to metahuman authority in the city,” Cisco says apologetically, “and she can get on the front page of _Picture News_ , or on the radio. It’s not foolproof, obviously—we don’t know if the man in yellow even checks the news, but it’s the simplest option. You do an interview with her and mention something about the man in yellow, something that will draw him out.”

“Plus, we won’t need to involve anyone else,” Caitlin points out. “She already has the access we need.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Barry says stubbornly.

Caitlin squints at him. “I’m not sure why you think it’s going to be dangerous for her, Barry, since she’s basically just the conduit. She’s interviewed you before. I’m not sure why you think it’s different this time.”

“Because he threatened her, last time!” Barry exclaims, rubbing his temples in frustration. “I won’t allow her to go anywhere near him.”

Caitlin says, “Barry, the man in yellow didn’t say anything about Iris.”

“I—” Barry breaks off, swearing. Why couldn’t they _understand_? “He said my mother had to die because of me. _I_ loved her, so she _had_ to die.”

There’s a moment of silence as the rest of the room processes his outburst. Then Cisco says, very carefully, “And you think he’ll do the same to Iris, because…because.”

“Barry,” Caitlin says, gently, “how would he know? As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you’ve only done one interview with her.”

“Look,” Barry says roughly, “he knows things, all right? I’m not going to risk it.”

“Let’s table this for now,” Dr. Wells says abruptly, to Barry’s relief. “Why don’t we think about what information will be most useful to us in terms of collection? Cisco?”

*

Iris rushes into Jitters, looking around for the meta who’d asked to meet her. She’s running late; the weekly editorial meeting had gone even longer than she’d anticipated. In the early days, she’d met with new metas in public places all the time, wanting that security; now, with her raised profile and public association with the metahuman beat, it’s much less common. She’d been surprised when he’d suggested Jitters. Now she just hopes he hasn’t given up on her and left.

A Latino guy with shoulder-length dark hair waves at her from a corner table. Iris nods, heading over to him. “I’m so sorry I’m late; is now still good for you? And here is okay?”

He smiles nervously at her, tucking his hair behind his ears. “No worries, I understand. This is fine.”

She puts her stuff down on the chair across from him; it’s not lost on her that he’s taken the chair facing the rest of the coffee shop. “Can I get you a refill?” she asks, looking at his coffee cup, still half-full.

“I’m good,” he says. “Probably don’t need to mainline caffeine.”

“That is a foreign concept to me,” Iris says, and is relieved when he grins at her. “Be right back.”

A few minutes later, she settles across from him, cappuccino in hand. “Sorry; I was so flustered I didn’t even properly introduce myself. Although obviously you already know who I am.”

“Again, no worries,” he says. “And yeah, I know who you are.” He awkwardly sticks his hand out at her across the table. “Cisco Ramon. Nice to meet you.”

She shakes. “So I can do this in whichever way feels most comfortable to you. If you’d prefer I not record your voice, that’s okay, if you don’t mind me taking notes by hand—”

“Uh,” he interrupts, looking uncomfortable. “Actually. I’m not—I know I might have led you to believe, but…uh. I’m not actually a meta.”

Iris blinks. “Oh.” She sits back in her chair, reassessing him. “Well, in that case, how can I help you, Mr. Ramon?”

He makes a slight face. “Cisco, please. And, um, well, the thing is… I’m not a metahuman. But my, uh, my friend is.”

She relaxes slightly. If this is how he wanted to play it, that was fine. Other metas had taken this route with her before. “Okay sure. Do you want to tell me a little more about your, um, _friend_?”

“You actually already know him,” Cisco says, and then looks a little pained. “And when he finds out I talked to you, he is going to be _so_ pissed.”

She frowns. “Who is he?”

He glances around surreptitiously and then leans closer to her. She mimics him, holding her breath.

“It’s—it’s Barry. Barry Allen. The Flash?”

Well. _That_ is unexpected.

“Oh,” she says blankly, after a moment. Then her brain kicks in: “You work with him—you’re part of his team?” Cisco nods. She smiles at him with real affection this time. “It is so nice to meet you! I knew he—Barry—was working with someone. I didn’t want to pry, though.”

“He said—you were worried about plausible deniability, so he thought it was better that you not know our identities,” Cisco says hesitantly. “And I apologize, I would normally have respected that, but we need your help, and he’s pretty insistent on keeping you out of it.”

“Oh,” Iris says again, thinking. “Well, I _was_ concerned about plausible deniability, it’s true.” She frowns. “But what’s this about you needing my help?”

He starts to explain. Iris is already jotting down some ideas on how they might be able to frame a proper lure for the man in yellow that is subtle enough not to get picked up by her editors when Cisco finishes, “But Barry seems to think that you’ll be in danger as well. He flat-out refused to even consider using you.”

Iris rolls her eyes. “He and I have had several…discussions…already about my safety. He’s just as bad as my dad.” She smiles reassuringly at Cisco. “You did the right thing. I’ve _told_ Barry I want to help, and you’re right, this seems like the simplest way to draw out the man in yellow. Barry is just gonna have to deal.”

*

“I cannot _believe_ you,” Barry says later to Cisco. He can feel lightning crackling up and down his veins; he is so angry he can hardly breathe. “It was _not_ your place to talk to Iris about me. I _told_ you I didn’t want her involved. And then you just went and—and—did it anyways!”

Cisco, to his credit, looks slightly abashed. Caitlin is standing slightly behind him, her brows pinched. They’re alone in the Cortex; Dr. Wells has gone off somewhere. At the moment, Barry can’t bring himself to care.

He’d swung by that afternoon wanting to talk over an idea he’d had about tracking the man in yellow while working on something in his lab. Cisco and Caitlin had been talking quietly together; when Barry had entered, Caitlin said, “Barry, we need to talk to you,” and motioned for him to sit down.

“I think you’re overreacting just a little,” she says now, and Barry swings towards her, eyes alight. She raises her hands defensively at his expression. “Obviously going behind your back was not the best answer. But Barry, Iris is already involved whether you like it or not. She has the tools to help us reach out to the man in yellow. It’s stupid not to let her.”

“Oh, _stupid_ , is it?” Barry says dangerously. Caitlin sighs. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just think that you’re letting your feelings for her cloud your judgement on this, Barry.”

“My judgement is fine,” Barry snaps. “As the only person here with any experience with the man in yellow, I think I’m in the best position to decide when something is dangerous or not.” He shakes his head in disgust. “You know, I—I can’t do this right now. I’m going back to work.” As he turns to go, he says cuttingly, “ _Try_ not to reveal our existence to anyone else in the meantime, okay?”

Neither Cisco nor Caitlin say anything.

*

 _Barry, can we talk?_ Iris texts that night. _Cisco told me how upset you are. Please, call me._ When he doesn’t reply, she mentally throws her hands up in the air and goes in search of him.

She wishes she could capture the dumbstruck look on his face when he opens his apartment door to find her outside. “I—Iris?” he stutters, staring.

“Hey,” she says. “Can I come in?”

He blinks at her for a few seconds more before stepping back to allow her inside. His apartment is smaller than hers, more a glorified studio, really, with a kitchenette in one corner and an unmade bed opposite. There’s a small, two-seater table shoved off to the side and a beat-up couch in front of a tv. Two doors lead off to what she can only assume are the bathroom and a closet. While he was clearly not expecting company—two large pizza boxes sit empty on the counter, next to an empty juice container—the place is unexpectedly neat, at least compared to what Wally’s room normally looks like. Although, Iris thinks wryly, when one can move at superspeed, cleaning up suddenly becomes a lot less daunting.

The walls are bare save for one, next to his table. It’s covered with printouts, diagrams, and other documents that Iris recognize as duplicates from the file he’d given her on his mom’s death. Iris goes to stand in front of it. He’d have to look at these papers every time he ate at the table, a stark reminder of his loss. “Oh, Barry,” she says softly.

He rubs his neck awkwardly. “How’d you find this place?”

“Personnel files at CCPD,” Iris says, and feels a rush of guilt for having inserted herself into his life like this. One side of Barry’s mouth kicks up. “I really should do something about making that network more secure.”

“I’m sorry,” she offers. “I shouldn’t have…I shouldn’t have come here. I should have respected your space.”

He shrugs dismissively. “I did the same thing to you months ago.”

It doesn’t quite feel like the same thing to her; she didn’t have a virtual shrine to her own dead mother in her apartment. Then again, her mother hadn’t been brutally murdered by someone still at large.

“I understand why you’re mad at Cisco,” she says, squaring her shoulders and looking at him. “But you need to stop treating me as though I’m something fragile. I’ve told you repeatedly that I want to help. This is one way I can.” When he moves to speak, she holds up a hand, forestalling him. “Barry, we can’t keep having this fight over and over again. It’s exhausting, and it just makes me think that you don’t trust me to handle myself. Also,” she adds quietly, “that you think so little of me that I need to be protected.”

“That’s not—” He breaks off, sighing. “I know you can handle yourself. I don’t—I think very highly of you, Iris.”

“Cisco also mentioned the plausible deniability thing,” Iris says. “I appreciate that you kept that in mind. It was and still is a concern, but at this point, I think I know too much for me to be able to realistically claim it. Now I feel like it’s just preventing me from knowing things that might actually _help_ , with this and with…with other things.”

“I never wanted to put you in a position you didn’t ask for,” Barry says, watching her.

She smiles at him. “I know. And again, I appreciate it. But I meant what I said before, about wanting to help. Please, Barry, please let me.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, watching her. Then he sighs, letting out a long breath, and Iris knows she’s won.

*

Iris has never been inside STAR Labs before. She’d expected it to be run-down and unkept since the explosion and is vaguely surprised to find this is not the case. She makes a mental note to ask Barry where the funds for its upkeep are coming from. Cisco greets her with a smile, bounding up from his computer like a golden retriever. Dr. Caitlin Snow is more reserved, but she’s much more welcoming than Dr. Harrison Wells, wheeling toward her with an unreadable expression. Barry doesn’t notice anything off, so perhaps that’s Wells’ default expression, Iris thinks. He’d been quite the man about town leading up to the explosion, but has cloistered himself away since then. His hand, shaking hers, is firm and cool.

“Ms. West,” he says, his voice low. “So glad you could join us.”

“It’s nice to meet you all,” Iris says politely. Barry tugs at her elbow, leading toward what looks like a central workstation with several impressive touchscreens. Now that he’s come around to her meeting the rest of his team, Barry apparently has decided to go all-in. The next several minutes are spent with him excitedly showing her all the programs and gadgets they have. Iris is impressed, and says so. “This is beyond anything I expected.”

“Well,” Dr. Wells says dryly, “it’s not as though they were being used for much else.”

“So,” Cisco says, clapping his hands together, “I was thinking about how to gather information on the man in yellow, when you’re able to draw him out. Obviously we can’t predict where that might be, which makes setting up sensors more difficult. So I’m just gonna put them in your suit instead.”

“Huh,” Barry says, cocking his head thoughtfully. “That’s actually a great idea. So long as they don’t add too much extra weight or drag.”

“Miles ahead of you, buddy,” Cisco says, pointing towards something that looks like a workroom-cum-medical bay. The two of them drift away, leaving Iris with Dr. Wells and Dr. Snow.

“Barry said you have some ideas for how to draw the man in yellow out,” Dr. Wells says, his brows raised, and Iris nods and begins to explain.

Later, she says mildly, “Dr. Wells is kind of intense.” Barry’s just run her home, and they’re standing on her balcony. She opens her door swiftly and walks in, wanting to move on from the spot where she kissed him.

Barry follows her inside. “I suppose I would be too, if my life’s work got extinguished in an instant and I was totally ruined as a result.”

She frowns. “Kind of dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Maybe.” He fidgets a little, then says, “So you’ll let me know when you want to do the interview?”

“Does day after tomorrow work? I need to figure out how to pitch it to my editors in a way to make it seem relevant but not suspicious.”

“You sure they’ll run it?”

“Of course,” Iris says dismissively, and then reconsiders. “Well, certainly it will appear online, at least. The Flash drives clicks, after all.”

“All right,” he says. “Um. Well. Is there anything I can help with in the meantime?” She shakes her head, and he says awkwardly, “Okay, well, just let me know when you want me,” and then blushes. “I mean. You know what I mean.”

“Right,” Iris says. “Obviously.”

“Right,” he repeats. “Okay, well, see you later!” Lightning flashes through the room and he’s gone.

Iris makes a face to the empty room. Her feelings for him notwithstanding (and she thought she’d been acting so _normal_ ), she’s getting a bit sick of Barry Allen leaving her apartment in a—well, _fine_ —in a flash. Sooner or later they’re going to have to talk about where things stand between them. Iris is more than a little resigned to totally embarrassing herself in that conversation, but hopefully they can get over this awkwardness and move on. She doesn’t want to give up on this work just because of her own stupid _emotions_.

They’ll talk after the interview is completed, she decides. That should give her enough time to screw up her courage and be honest with him. Both of them deserve nothing less.

*

Of course, nothing ever goes according to plan. Barry should have remembered this.

The interview goes live on CCPN’s website on a Thursday evening. Iris tells him that it will appear on the front page of the Metro section in the next day’s paper as well. “Below the fold,” she says, brow furrowed. “Since there’s technically no breaking news in it, and I couldn’t exactly tell the editors the truth. They cut _three inches_. At least they didn’t put it inside.”

Barry shrugs; he has no idea how the internal machinations at the paper work and he’s not really clear on her reference to _inches_ , either. He has a feeling that it’s professional journalistic competition making Iris scowl now and resolves to stay out of it. “You did a great job,” he says instead. She rolls her eyes at him. “Suck up.”

They’re standing in his lab after hours. A police station is never actually closed: as crime continues at all hours of the day, so must the officers of the law. But the various processing labs usually weren’t staffed after seven; now, the hallways surrounding Barry’s lab are dark. Iris had brought him a preview of tomorrow’s layout with the article on her own way home from CCPN. Barry assumes that she’d been planning on meeting her father at CCPD and is baffled, if pleased, when she says that Detective West has already gone home.

“You planning on staying much later?” she asks.

“Um,” Barry replies, looking around the lab. “No, I can be done now, actually.”

“Cool,” she says nonchalantly. “Wanna grab a drink?”

Barry looks sharply at her. She’s smiling faintly but looks studiedly casual; he can’t tell if there’s anything beyond the ingrained friendliness that permeates all of her actions.

“Uh, sure,” he says, because he might be uncertain but he’s not _stupid_. “Let me just tidy stuff up. Captain Singh doesn’t like it when we leave messes. Er, when _I_ leave messes,” he amends, and is pleased to hear hear laugh.

There’s no warning. Barry’s putting the cover on one of his microscopes when a flash of red lightning fills the room. He spins around. The man in yellow stands in the doorway, head cocked to the side.

“Oh, Barry,” he says, his disguised voice a menacing purr. “How very unsubtle of you.”

Barry’s not wearing his suit. He thinks, helplessly, of all the readings Cisco had engineered his suit to make, of his friends back at STAR Labs, who have no idea what’s happening. He’s not about to leave Iris alone and he’s not sure if he can carry her and run fast enough to get her to safety.

“Feeling naked?” the man says, reading Barry’s expression, and Barry can’t help his own answering scowl. It only makes the man laugh. Barry’s skin crawls.

Iris must have moved, behind him, because the man transfers his amused gaze to her. “Well, well,” the man says, still looking at Iris. His tone, despite the disguise, is silky. “If it isn’t the future Mrs. West-Allen. I’ve been just _dying_ to meet you.”

*

**TBC**


End file.
